Pale as transparent Psyche-wings,4
To the vile text, are traced such things
260 As might make lady's cheek indeed
More than a living rose to read;
So nought save foolish foulness may
Watch with hard eyes the sure decay:
And so the life-blood of this rose,
265 Puddled with shameful knowledge, flows Through leaves no chaste hand may unclose;
Yet still it keeps such faded show
Of when 'twas gathered long ago,
That the crushed petals' lovely grain, 270 The sweetness of the sanguine0 stain, blood-red Seen of a woman's eyes, must make
Her pitiful heart, so prone to ache,
Love roses better for its sake:?
Only that this can never be:?
275 Even so unto her sex is she.
Yet, Jenny, looking long at you,
The woman almost fades from view.
2. The painters Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483? escaped the body after death. Also, in the well1520) and Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). known story told by Apuleius (The Goldeji Ass, 2nd 3. Cf. John 14.2: 'In my Father's house are many century C.E.), Psyche was a maiden beloved by mansions.' Cupid. 4. The soul, often symbolized by a butterfly that
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JENNY / 1455
A cipher of man's changeless sum
Of lust, past, present, and to come,
280 Is left. A riddle that one shrinks
To challenge from the scornful sphinx.5
Like a toad within a stone
Seated while Time crumbles on;
Which sits there since the earth was curs'd
285 For Man's transgression at the first;
Which, living through all centuries,
Not once has seen the sun arise;
Whose life, to its cold circle charmed,
The earth's whole summers have not warmed;
290 Which always?whitherso the stone
Be flung?sits there, deaf, blind, alone;?
Aye, and shall not be driven out
Till that which shuts him round about
Break at the very Master's stroke,
295 And the dust thereof vanish as smoke,
And the seed of Man vanish as dust:?
Even so within this world is Lust.
Come, come, what use in thoughts like this?
Poor little Jenny, good to kiss,?
300 You'd not believe by what strange roads
Thought travels, when your beauty goads
A man to-night to think of toads!
Jenny, wake up . . . Why, there's the dawn!
And there's an early waggon drawn
