305 To market, and some sheep that jog
Bleating before a barking dog;
And the old streets come peering through
Another night that London knew;
And all as ghostlike as the lamps.
310 So on the wings of day decamps
My last night's frolic. Glooms begin
To shiver off as lights creep in
Past the gauze curtains half drawn-to,
And the lamp's doubled shade grows blue,?
315 Your lamp, my Jenny, kept alight,
Like a wise virgin's, all one night!6
And in the alcove coolly spread
Glimmers with dawn your empty bed;
And yonder your fair face I see
320 Reflected lying on my knee,
Where teems with first foreshadowings
Your pier-glass7 scrawled with diamond rings:
5. In Greek mythology a monster with a lion's 6. Cf. Matthew 25.1-13. In the parable of the body, bird's wings, and woman's face. The answer wise and foolish virgins, the wise virgins took sufto her riddle?what walks on four legs in the morn-ficient oil to keep their lamps burning all night. ing, three at noon, and three in the evening??is 7. A mirror. Lovers would scratch their names on man, at different ages. it with the diamonds in their rings.
.
1456 / DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
And on your bosom all night worn
Yesterday's rose now droops forlorn,
325 But dies not yet this summer morn.
And now without, as if some word
Had called upon them that they heard,
The London sparrows far and nigh
Clamour together suddenly;
330 And Jenny's cage-bird grown awake
Here in their song his part must take,
Because here too the day doth break.
And somehow in myself the dawn
Among stirred clouds and veils withdrawn
335 Strikes greyly on her. Let her sleep.
But will it wake her if I heap
These cushions thus beneath her head
Where my knee was? No,?there's your bed,
My Jenny, while you dream. And there
340 I lay among your golden hair, Perhaps the subject of your dreams,
These golden coins.
For still one deems
That Jenny's flattering sleep confers
New magic on the magic purse,?
345 Grim web, how clogged with shrivelled flies!
Between the threads fine fumes arise
And shape their pictures in the brain.
There roll no streets in glare and rain.
Nor flagrant man-swine whets his tusk;
