The lodestar0 of your reverie? guiding star
This room of yours, my Jenny, looks
A change from mine so full of books,
Whose serried4 ranks hold fast, forsooth,
25 So many captive hours of youth,?
The hours they thieve from day and night
To make one's cherished work come right,
And leave it wrong for all their theft,
Even as to-night my work was left:
30 Until I vowed that since my brain
And eyes of dancing seemed so fain,? desirous
My feet should have some dancing too:?
And thus it was I met with you.
Well, I suppose 'twas hard to part,
35 For here I am. And now, sweetheart,
You seem too tired to get to bed.
It was a careless life I led
When rooms like this were scarce so strange
Not long ago. What breeds the change,?
40 The many aims or the few years?
Because to-night it all appears
Something I do not know again.
1. Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor 3. Allusion to the first line of the prayer to the 4.1.53?54. Mistress Quickly continues: 'if she be Virgin Mary: 'Hail Mary, full of grace.' a whore.' 4. Pressed close together. 2. English gold coin worth twenty-one shillings.
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145 0 / DANT E GABRIE L ROSSETT I 455055The cloud's not danced out of my brain? The cloud that made it turn and swim While hour by hour the books grew dim. Why, Jenny, as I watch you there,? For all your wealth of loosened hair, Your silk ungirdled and unlac'd And warm sweets open to the waist. All golden in the lamplight's gleam,? You know not what a book you seem, Half-read by lightning in a dream! How should you know, my Jenny? Nay, And I should be ashamed to say:? Poor beauty, so well worth a kiss! But while my thought runs on like this With wasteful whims more than enough, I wonder what you're thinking of. 6065If of myself you think at all, What is the thought??conjectural On sorry matters best unsolved?? Or inly? is each grace revolved To fit me with a lure??or (sad To think!) perhaps you're merely glad That I'm not drunk or ruffianly And let you rest upon my knee. inwardly to75so85For sometimes, were the truth confess'd, You're thankful for a little rest,? Glad from the crush to rest within, From the heart-sickness and the din Where envy's voice at virtue's pitch Mocks you because your gown is rich; And from the pale girl's dumb rebuke, Whose ill-clad grace and toil-worn look Proclaim the strength that keeps her weak, And other nights than yours bespeak; And from the wise unchildish elf, To schoolmate lesser than himself Pointing you out, what thing you are:? Yes, from the daily jeer and jar, From shame and shame's outbraving too, Is rest not sometimes sweet to you?? But most from the hatefulness of man, Who spares not to end what he began, Whose acts are ill and his speech ill, Who, having used you at his will, Thrusts you aside, as when I dine I serve' the dishes and the wine. treat 90Well, handsome Jenny mine, sit up: I've filled our glasses, let us sup, And do not let me think of you, Lest shame of yours suffice for two.
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JENNY / 1451
What, still so tired? Well, well then, keep
Your head there, so you do not sleep;
95 But that the weariness may pass
And leave you merry, take this glass.
Ah! lazy lily hand, more bless'd
If ne'er in rings it had been dress'd
Nor ever by a glove conceal'd!
ioo Behold the lilies of the field,
They toil not neither do they spin;
(So doth the ancient text5 begin,?
Not of such rest as one of these
Can share.) Another rest and ease
105 Along each summer-sated path From its new lord the garden hath,
