Jenny (late copy with heavy revisions, Fitzwilliam Museum) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Jenny Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 October-November; 1870 January-February This is a working draft copy. 20 leaves, the first two being a distinct pair; then a uniform sequence of leaves 3-18; then two half sheets. DGR DGR Fitzwilliam Museum The bound volume containing this manuscript, as well as other manuscript documents of the poem, was given to the museum by Charles Fairfax Murray in 1905. green leather leaves 1-2 lined notebook pages (measurements: 22.16.8cm); leaves 3-18 lined notebook pages (measurements: 22 x 17.4cm); leaves 19-20 (two hald sheet, unlined (measurements: 17.9 x 11.1cm). leaves 19-20 bear the partial watermark: SUPER. The watermarked leaves are DGR's commonly used paper watermarked J ALLEN & SONS/ SUPER FINE. Commentary
Introduction

This is the working draft of the poem that DGR produced in October 1869 after he had made a copy of the text that had been buried in his wife's coffin in 1861. The copy made from the exhumed manuscript, as well as the latter, do not appear to have survived.

This holograph manuscript has three parts. The first part is DGR's draft of lines 1-83 (76 lines in the manuscript). At that point the poet began redrafting from the beginning, to produce a cleaner copy from the heavily revised initial manuscript draft. The second part of the document is this second copy, which represents substantially the text of the poem as it was printed in the Exhumation Proofs. The third part comprises two pages of additions, one of which went into the Second Trial Book, the other into theProof for the First Edition of the 1870 <xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" workcode="3-1848"> <hi rend="i">Poems</hi> </xref> .

These paired documents are gathered and bound together in a leather notebook once the property of Fairfax Murray. Preceding them in the volume are two other texts of the poem: the non-autograph manuscript copy that stands closest to the text exhumed from DGR's wife's grave; and a typescript of the first three manuscript pages (lines 1-146) of the Delaware Manuscript of the poem.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

Printing History

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

1 Pagination number in upper right This to be put as a model after the title DGR's pencil note to the epigraph <hi rend="u">Jenny</hi> The epigraph is at the foot of the page, keyed to the title by an asterisk.

“Vengeance of Jenny's case! Fie on her! Never nameher, child, !” if she be a whore!” (Mrs. Quickly.)

 Lazy laughing languid Jenny, Fond of a kiss and of a guinea, Whose head is on my knee to-night,— (Have all our dances left it light With their wild tunes?)—Ah, Jenny, queen Of kisses which the blush between Could hardly make much daintier!— Nay, Poor flower left torn since yesterday Until tomorrow leave you bare!— Poor handful of bright spring-water Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face!— Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace Thus with your head upon my knee;— Whose look, whose voice, whose purse may be The topics subject lodestar of your reverie? The verso facing page two carries various additions to the main text scripted on the recto: in this case the additions comprise received lines 22-58, 73-75, 79-82 of this manuscript text. This room of yours, my Jenny, looks A change from yours s mine so full of books, Which, heaped and ranged, [?] hold fast, in truth forsooth, So many prisoned hours of youth,—[?] The hours they steal thieve from day and night To make one's cherished work come right, Yet leave it wrong for all their theft, And so to-night my work was left: Until I vowed that since my brain And eyes of dancing seemed so fain, My feet should have some dancing too:— And thus it was I met with you. Well, I suppose 'twas hard to part, For here I am. And now, sweetheart, You seem too tired to get to bed. The cloud's not danced out of my head That from my books so made it swim,— Books, books, still books, all glum and grim! Why, as you sit beneath me 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. And from the ill-clad girl whose cheek Of the heart's strength that makes her weak And other nights than yours doth speak; Pointing you out, what thing you are:— Yes, from the daily jest jeer and jar, From shame and shame's outbraving too, Is rest not sometimes sweet to you?— 2 Pagination number in upper right Whose purse is in your thoughts [?] till [?] If 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. For sometimes, were the truth confess'd, You're thankful for a little rest?— From all the crush to rest within, And f From the sickness heart-sickness and from the din Of women's envious mocking, which Where envy's voice at virtue's pitch Mocks you because your gown is rich: And from the wise unchildish elf, To schoolmate lesser than himself [Asking ???] Whether he [?] But most from the [?] scantiness of man blank page 3 Pagination number in upper right Jenny DGR here begins recopying the text to clarify it in relation to the additions he had made in the first copying. ==

“Vengeance of Jenny's case! Fie on her! Nevername her, child!” (Mrs Quickly.)

 == Lazy laughing languid Jenny, Fond of a kiss and of a guinea, Whose head is on my knee to-night;— (Have all our dances left it light With their wild tunes?)—Ah, Jenny, queen Of kisses which the blush between Could hardly make much daintier!—Nay, Poor flower left torn since yesterday Until to-morrow leave you bare; Poor handful of bright spring-water Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face!— Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace Thus with your head upon my knee;— Whose look, whose voice, whose purse may be blank page 4 Pagination number in upper right The lodestar of your reverie? This room of yours, my Jenny, looks A change from mine so full of books, Which, heaped and ranged, hold fast, forsooth, Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth, So many prisoned 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, And so Even as to-night my work was left: Until I vowed that since my brain And eyes of dancing seemed so fain, My feet should have some dancing too:— And thus it was I met with you. Well, I suppose 'twas hard to part, 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 [?] not so strange Not long ago No long time since. What makes breeds the change,— The many parts books aims or the few years? blank page 5 Pagination number in upper right Because to-night it all appears. Something I do not know again. The cloud's not danced out of my brain,— The cloud that made the books so swim At every effort's interim. To [?] full cloud that made it swim, The buzzing cloud that I saw swim With books, books, books to [?] or swim all those still books on books to search or skim books on books to sink or swim 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. If of myself you think at all, What is the thought?—conjectural blank page 6 Pagination number in upper right 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. For sometimes, were the truth confess'd, You're thankful for a little rest,— From all 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 ill-clad girl whose cheek And from the pale girl's dumb rebuke, Of the heart's strength that keeps her weak Whose ill-clad grace and toil-worn look Proclaim the strength that keeps her weak And other nights than yours doth speak 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 blank page 7 Pagination number in upper right Who scorns spares not to end what he began, Whose acts are foul and his speech hard, Who, having used you, afterward Thrusts you aside, as when I dine I serve the dishes and the wine. Well, 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. What, still so tired? Well, well then, keep Your head there, so you do not sleep; But that the weariness may pass Ere bed-time, Jenny 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! Behold the lilies of the field, They toil not neither do they spin; (So doth the ancient text begin,— Not of the such rest of as one of these blank page 7 Pagination number in upper right Shares another Can share.) Another rest and ease Along each summer-sated path From its new lord the garden hath, Than that whose Spring in blessings ran Which praised the righteous husbandman, Ere yet, in days of hankering breath, The lilies sickened unto death. What, Jenny, are your lilies dead? Aye, and the snow-white leaves are spread Like winter on the garden-bed. But you had roses left in May,— They were not gone too. Jenny, nay, But must your roses die away? Even so; the leaves are curled apart, Still red as from the broken heart, And here's the naked stem of thorns. Nay, nay, mere words. Here nothing warns As yet of winter. Sickness here Or want alone could waken fear,— Nothing but passion wrings a tear. blank page 9 Pagination number in upper right Except when there may rise unsought Haply at times a passing thought Of the old days that which seem to be Much older than any history That is written in any book; When she would lie in fields and look Along the ground through the thick grass, And wonder where the city was, Far out of sight, whose broil and bale They told her then for a child's tale. Jenny, you know the city now. A child can tell the tale there, how Some things, which are not yet enroll'd In market-lists, are bought and sold Even till the early Sunday light, When Saturday night is market-night Everywhere, be it dry or wet, And market-night in the Haymarket. Our learned London children know, Poor Jenny, all your mirth and woe; Have seen your lifted silken skirt blank page 9 Pagination number in upper right Advertize dainties through the dirt; Have seen your coach-wheels splash rebuke On virtue; and have learned your look When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare Along the streets alone, and there, Round the long park, across the bridge; The cold lamps at the pavement's edge Wind on together and apart, A fiery serpent for your heart. Let the thoughts pass, an empty cloud! Suppose I were to think aloud,— What if to her all this were said? Why, as a volume seldom read Opens half and Being opened halfway shuts again, So might the pages of her brain Be parted at such words, and thence Close back upon the dusty sense. For is there hue or shape defin'd In Jenny's desecrated mind, Where all contagious currents meet, A Lethe of the middle street? blank page 9 Pagination number in upper right Nay, it reflects not any face, Nor sound is in its sluggish pace, But as they coil those eddies clot, And memory's self remembers night and day remember not. Why, Jenny, you're asleep, I said At first, to rouse clear your drowsy head We ought to have gone straight to bed. What Jenny, fast asleep? . . . . How fair, So, so, she sleeps, how gently fair, With chin thus nestled in her hair, Mouth quiet, eyelids almost blue As if some sky of dreams shone through! Just as another woman sleeps! Enough to throw one's thoughts in heaps Of doubt and horror,—what to say Or think,—this awful secret sway, The potter's power over the clay! Of the same lump (it has been said) For honour and dishonour made, Two sister vessels. Jenny's Here is one. blank page 12 Pagination number in upper right My cousin Nell is fond of fun, And fond of dress, and change, and praise, So mere a woman in her ways: And if her sweet eyes rich in youth Are like her lips that tell the truth, My cousin Nell is fond of love. And she's the girl I'm proudest of. Who does not prize her, guard her well? The love of change, in cousin Nell, Shall find the best and hold it dear: The unconquered mirth turn quieter Not through her own, through others' woe: The conscious pride of beauty glow Beside another's pride in her, One little part of all they share. For Love himself shall ripen these In a kind soil to just increase Through years of fertilizing peace. Of the same lump (as it is said) To honour and dishonour made, blank page 13 Pagination number in upper right Two sister vessels. Here is one. It makes a goblin of the sun. So pure, so fallen! How dare to think Of the first common kindred link? Yet, Jenny, till the world shall burn It seems that all things take their turn; And who shall say but this fair tree May need, in changes that may be, Your children's children's charity? Scorned then, no doubt, as you are scorn'd! Shall no man hold his pride forewarn'd Till in the end, the Day of Days, At Judgment, one of his own race, As frail and lost as you, shall rise, His daughter, with his mother's eyes? Each of such curdled lives alike A life for which my twelve hours strike And time must be and time must end. Hard to keep sight of! What might tend blank page 14 Pagination number in upper right To give the thought clear presence? Well, Remember it is possible, Whether I please or do not please, That in the making each of these A separate man has lost his soul. Fair shines the gilded aureole In which our highest painters place Some living woman's simple face. And the stilled features thus descried As Jenny's long throat droops aside,— The patient loving underlip drawn in, The shadows where the cheeks are thin, And pure wide curve from ear to chin,— With Giotto's or Giorgione's Raffael's or Da Vinci's hand To show them to men's souls, might stand, Whole ages long, the whole world through, For preachings of what God can do. What has God man done here? How atone, Great God, for this which man has done? And for the body and soul which by Man's pitiless doom must now comply blank page 15 Pagination number in upper right With lifelong hell, what lullaby Of sweet forgetful second birth Remains? All dark. No sign on earth What measure of God's rest endows The many mansions of his house. If but a woman's heart might see The Such erring heart unerringly For once! But that can never be. Like a rose shut in a book In which pure women may not look, For its base pages claim control To crush the flower within the soul; Where through each dead rose-leaf that clings, Pale as transparent psyche-wings, To the vile text, are traced such things 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, blank page 16 Pagination number in upper right Puddled with filthy shameful knowledge, goes 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, The sweetness of the sanguine stain, 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:— Even so unto her sex is she. But truly Yet, Jenny, looking long at you, The woman almost fades from view. A cypher of man's changeless sum Of lust, past, present, and to come, Remains Is left. A riddle that one shrinks To challenge from the scornful sphinx. Like a toad within a stone Seated while Time crumbles on; Which has sat sits there since the earth was curs'd Received lines 298-303 are composed on this verso as an addition to the facing recto—substituting six lines for the five that DGR had originally composed. Come, come, what use in thoughts like this? Poor little Jenny, good to kiss,— 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! 17 Pagination number in upper right When For Man's seed sinned 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; And Which still—whitherso the stone [???] Which always—whitherso the stone Be cast—sits there, deaf, blind, alone;— Aye, and shall not be driven out Till the flint wrapping that which shuts him round about Break at the very Master's stroke, 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? I meant a woman good to kiss Poor little Jenny, good to kiss Tonight should yield me something more Than bloodless perking dreams and all this bloodless metaphor. Jenny, wake up. Why, there's the Dawn! And there's an early waggon, drawn To market, and some sheep that jog Received lines 307-322, 333-336 are composed on this verso as an addition to the facing recto. And the same old streets are come peering through The last dark Another night that London knew; And all as ghostlike as the lamps. 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,— Your lamp, my Jenny, kept alight, Like a wise virgin's, all one night! And in the alcove coolly spread Glimmers with dawn your vestal bed; And yonder your fair face I see Reflected lying on my knee, Where teems with first foreshadowings Your pier-glass scrawled with diamond rings. And somehow in myself the dawn Among stirred clouds and veils withdrawn Strikes greyly on her. Let her sleep. But will it wake her if I heap 18 Pagination number in upper right Bleating before a barking dog; And all as ghostlike as the lamps, So on the wings of day decamps My last night's frolic. Let her sleep Will it not wake her, though, to heap 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 I lay among your golden hair Perhaps the subject of your dreams, These golden coins. For still it seems one deems That in poor Jenny's sleep there stirs A spell around the magic purse,— 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; But delicately sighs in musk blank page 19 Pagination number in upper right The homage of the dim boudoir; Or like a palpitating star Thrilled into song, the Opera-night Breathes faint in the quick pulse of light; Or at the carriage-window shine Rich wares for choice; or, free to dine, Whirls through its hour of health (divine For her) the pageant concourse of the Park. And though in the discounted dark Her functions there and here are one, Beneath the lamps and in the sun There reigns at least the explicit acknowledged belle Apparelled beyond parallel. Ah Jenny, yes, we know your dreams. For even the Paphian Venus seems A goddess o'er the realms of love, When shrined, of silver, in some grove: silver-shrined in shadowy grove: Aye, or let offerings nicely plac'd But hide Priapus to the waist, And whoso looks on him shall see An eligible deity. blank page 20 Pagination number in upper right Why, Jenny, waking here alone May help you to remember one! I think I see you when you wake, And rub your eyes for me, and shake My gold, in rising, from your hair, A Danaë for a moment there. Jenny, my love rang true! For still Love at first sight is vague, until That tinkling makes him audible. And must I mock you to the last, Ashamed of my own shame,—aghast Because some thoughts not born amiss Rose at a poor fair face like this? They came and went, but this I know: Nay, so it is [?] and be it so: Well, of such thoughts so much I know: In my life, as in hers, they show, By a far gleam which I may near, A dark path I can strive to clear. Only one kiss. Goodbye, my dear. blank page Draft addition of received lines 220-229 How Jenny's clock ticks on the shelf! Does the face Might not the dial scorn itself With such [?] That has such hours to register? Yet even as to me, even so to her Are golden sun & silver moon, In daily largesse of God's earth's boon, Counted for life-coins to one tune. How [?] life [?] equal cost And if, as blindfold chance is fates are toss'd, Through some one man this life be lost, Shall soul not somehow pay for soul? blank page Draft addition of received lines 323-332 And on your bosom all night worn Yesterday's rose now droops forlorn But dies not yet this summer morn. And now without, as if some word Had called upon them which that they heard, The London birds that [?] rest upon ? haunt no tree Clamour together suddenly; And in the cage your bird awake Joins in their song for the day's sake Because here too the day doth break. And Jenny's cage-bird [?] grown awake Here in their song his some part must take, Because here too the day doth break. blank page