Jenny Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFGHHEEIIAA AJJKKBBLLMMNNOOPPQQR RSMTTEEPPUUUHHVVWXYY PPPPYAPPZZA2A2B2C2D2 D2E2E2EEPPF2F2YYG2G2 H2H2PPI2I2J2J2PPPPZZ K2K2KKF2F2KKPPPHHL2L 2PPL2L2EEEPPAAC2C2L2 L2YYF2F2PPPPPPF2F2PP B2C2EEM2N2PPPPPPF2F2 L2L2PPPPL2L2PPPPEEPP L2L2L2L2L2PPF2F2L2L2 KKXXYYEEF2F2EEL2L2L2 PPF2F2O2O2F2F2AAAPPL 2L2L2L2E2E2EEP2Lazy laughing languid Jenny | A |
Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea | A |
Whose head upon my knee to night | B |
Rests for a while as if grown light | B |
With all our dances and the sound | C |
To which the wild tunes spun you round | C |
Fair Jenny mine the thoughtless queen | D |
Of kisses which the blush between | D |
Could hardly make much daintier | E |
Whose eyes are as blue skies whose hair | E |
Is countless gold incomparable | F |
Fresh flower scarce touched with signs that tell | G |
Of Love's exuberant hotbed Nay | H |
Poor flower left torn since yesterday | H |
Until to morrow leave you bare | E |
Poor handful of bright spring water | E |
Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face | I |
Poor shameful Jenny full of grace | I |
Thus with your head upon my knee | A |
Whose person or whose purse may be | A |
The lodestar of your reverie | A |
This room of yours my Jenny looks | J |
A change from mine so full of books | J |
Whose serried ranks hold fast forsooth | K |
So many captive hours of youth | K |
The hours they thieve from day and night | B |
To make one's cherished work come right | B |
And leave it wrong for all their theft | L |
Even as to night my work was left | L |
Until I vowed that since my brain | M |
And eyes of dancing seemed so fain | M |
My feet should have some dancing too | N |
And thus it was I met with you | N |
Well I suppose 'twas hard to part | O |
For here I am And now sweetheart | O |
You seem too tired to get to bed | P |
It was a careless life I led | P |
When rooms like this were scarce so strange | Q |
Not long ago What breeds the change | Q |
The many aims or the few years | R |
Because to night it all appears | R |
Something I do not know again | S |
The cloud's not danced out of my brain | M |
The cloud that made it turn and swim | T |
While hour by hour the books grew dim | T |
Why Jenny as I watch you there | E |
For all your wealth of loosened hair | E |
Your silk ungirdled and unlac'd | P |
And warm sweets open to the waist | P |
All golden in the lamplight's gleam | U |
You know not what a book you seem | U |
Half read by lightning in a dream | U |
How should you know my Jenny Nay | H |
And I should be ashamed to say | H |
Poor beauty so well worth a kiss | V |
But while my thought runs on like this | V |
With wasteful whims more than enough | W |
I wonder what you're thinking of | X |
If of myself you think at all | Y |
What is the thought conjectural | Y |
On sorry matters best unsolved | P |
Or inly is each grace revolved | P |
To fit me with a lure or sad | P |
To think perhaps you're merely glad | P |
That I'm not drunk or ruffianly | Y |
And let you rest upon my knee | A |
For sometimes were the truth confess'd | P |
You're thankful for a little rest | P |
Glad from the crush to rest within | Z |
From the heart sickness and the din | Z |
Where envy's voice at virtue's pitch | A2 |
Mocks you because your gown is rich | A2 |
And from the pale girl's dumb rebuke | B2 |
Whose ill clad grace and toil worn look | C2 |
Proclaim the strength that keeps her weak | D2 |
And other nights than yours bespeak | D2 |
And from the wise unchildish elf | E2 |
To schoolmate lesser than himself | E2 |
Pointing you out what thing you are | E |
Yes from the daily jeer and jar | E |
From shame and shame's outbraving too | P |
Is rest not sometimes sweet to you | P |
But most from the hatefulness of man | F2 |
Who spares not to end what he began | F2 |
Whose acts are ill and his speech ill | Y |
Who having used you at his will | Y |
Thrusts you aside as when I dine | G2 |
I serve the dishes and the wine | G2 |
Well handsome Jenny mine sit up | H2 |
I've filled our glasses let us sup | H2 |
And do not let me think of you | P |
Lest shame of yours suffice for two | P |
What still so tired Well well then keep | I2 |
Your head there so you do not sleep | I2 |
But that the weariness may pass | J2 |
And leave you merry take this glass | J2 |
Ah lazy lily hand more bless'd | P |
If ne'er in rings it had been dress'd | P |
Nor ever by a glove conceal'd | P |
Behold the lilies of the field | P |
They toil not neither do they spin | Z |
So doth the ancient text begin | Z |
Not of such rest as one of these | K2 |
Can share Another rest and ease | K2 |
Along each summer sated path | K |
From its new lord the garden hath | K |
Than that whose spring in blessings ran | F2 |
Which praised the bounteous husbandman | F2 |
Ere yet in days of hankering breath | K |
The lilies sickened unto death | K |
What Jenny are your lilies dead | P |
Aye and the snow white leaves are spread | P |
Like winter on the garden bed | P |
But you had roses left in May | H |
They were not gone too Jenny nay | H |
But must your roses die and those | L2 |
Their purfled buds that should unclose | L2 |
Even so the leaves are curled apart | P |
Still red as from the broken heart | P |
And here's the naked stem of thorns | L2 |
Nay nay mere words Here nothing warns | L2 |
As yet of winter Sickness here | E |
Or want alone could waken fear | E |
Nothing but passion wrings a tear | E |
Except when there may rise unsought | P |
Haply at times a passing thought | P |
Of the old days which seem to be | A |
Much older than any history | A |
That is written in any book | C2 |
When she would lie in fields and look | C2 |
Along the ground through the blown grass | L2 |
And wonder where the city was | L2 |
Far out of sight whose broil and bale | Y |
They told her then for a child's tale | Y |
Jenny you know the city now | F2 |
A child can tell the tale there how | F2 |
Some things which are not yet enroll'd | P |
In market lists are bought and sold | P |
Even till the early Sunday light | P |
When Saturday night is market night | P |
Everywhere be it dry or wet | P |
And market night in the Haymarket | P |
Our learned London children know | F2 |
Poor Jenny all your pride and woe | F2 |
Have seen your lifted silken skirt | P |
Advertise dainties through the dirt | P |
Have seen your coach wheels splash rebuke | B2 |
On virtue and have learned your look | C2 |
When wealth and health slipped past you stare | E |
Along the streets alone and there | E |
Round the long park across the bridge | M2 |
The cold lamps at the pavement's edge | N2 |
Wind on together and apart | P |
A fiery serpent for your heart | P |
Let the thoughts pass an empty cloud | P |
Suppose I were to think aloud | P |
What if to her all this were said | P |
Why as a volume seldom read | P |
Being opened halfway shuts again | F2 |
So might the pages of her brain | F2 |
Be parted at such words and thence | L2 |
Close back upon the dusty sense | L2 |
For is there hue or shape defin'd | P |
In Jenny's desecrated mind | P |
Where all contagious currents meet | P |
A Lethe of the middle street | P |
Nay it reflects not any face | L2 |
Nor sound is in its sluggish pace | L2 |
But as they coil those eddies clot | P |
And night and day remember not | P |
Why Jenny you're asleep at last | P |
Asleep poor Jenny hard and fast | P |
So young and soft and tired so fair | E |
With chin thus nestled in your hair | E |
Mouth quiet eyelids almost blue | P |
As if some sky of dreams shone through | P |
Just as another woman sleeps | L2 |
Enough to throw one's thoughts in heaps | L2 |
Of doubt and horror what to say | L2 |
Or think this awful secret sway | L2 |
The potter's power over the clay | L2 |
Of the same lump it has been said | P |
For honour and dishonour made | P |
Two sister vessels Here is one | F2 |
My cousin Nell is fond of fun | F2 |
And fond of dress and change and praise | L2 |
So mere a woman in her ways | L2 |
And if her sweet eyes rich in youth | K |
Are like her lips that tell the truth | K |
My cousin Nell is fond of love | X |
And she's the girl I'm proudest of | X |
Who does not prize her guard her well | Y |
The love of change in cousin Nell | Y |
Shall find the best and hold it dear | E |
The unconquered mirth turn quieter | E |
Not through her own through others' woe | F2 |
The conscious pride of beauty glow | F2 |
Beside another's pride in her | E |
One little part of all they share | E |
For Love himself shall ripen these | L2 |
In a kind soil to just increase | L2 |
Through years of fertilizing peace | L2 |
Of the same lump as it is said | P |
For honour and dishonour made | P |
Two sister vessels Here is one | F2 |
It makes a goblin of the sun | F2 |
So pure so fall'n How dare to think | O2 |
Of the first common kindred link | O2 |
Yet Jenny till the world shall burn | F2 |
It seems that all things take their turn | F2 |
And who shall say but this fair tree | A |
May need in changes that may be | A |
Your children's children's charity | A |
Scorned then no doubt as you are scorn'd | P |
Shall no man hold his pride forewarn'd | P |
Till in the end the Day of Days | L2 |
At Judgment one of his own race | L2 |
As frail and lost as you shall rise | L2 |
His daughter with his mother's eyes | L2 |
How Jenny's clock ticks on the shelf | E2 |
Might not the dial scorn itself | E2 |
That has such hours to register | E |
Yet as to me even so to her | E |
Are golden sun and silver m | P2 |
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(1)
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