Jenny (fair copy, non-holograph, Fitzwilliam Museum) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Jenny Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 (probably sometime after 1869, perhaps many years later) fair copy in unknown hand The manuscript is a copy of the copy DGR made from the manuscript he had exhumed from his wife's coffin in 1869. unknown 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. Commentary
Introduction

Collating this non-autograph copy with the Delaware Manuscript, theFitzwilliam holograph, and the first printing in the Exhumation Proofs shows that this copy was made from the text that DGR had buried in the coffin with his wife's body in 1861. The note at the head of this manuscript indicates that this copy is a copy of a copy, and a copy that was probably made sometime after 1869 when the original copy of the exhumed manuscript was made—possibly even after DGR's death.

This text (and the holograph from which this text derives) antecedes (and differs markedly from) the Fitzwilliam holograph. As for the latter, it too shows numerous major differences from the Exhumation Proof texts, and thus suggests that DGR prepared yet another copy for the printer in October 1869.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

Printing History

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

From a variant belonging to Charles Gatty Note at the top of the manuscript. <hi rend="u">Jenny</hi> An harlot is accounted as spittle. Ecclesiasticus xxvi Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? Romans ix - 21. ---- Lazy laughing languid Jenny, Fond of a freak and of a guinea; Whose head is on my knee tonight;— (Have all our waltzes left it light With those wild tunes?)—ah! Jenny, queen Of kisses which the blush between Could hardly make much daintier; Whose eyes are as blue skies; whose hair Holds the light globed like any shell: Fair flower, to fragrance reared so well Within Love's sultriest hotbed:— Nay, Blossom of the eternal May, Plucked and fouled and trampled on, Stemless, scentless, strengthless, gone; Even so, alas! or as it were A handfull of bright spring-water Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face:— blank page In this manuscript, the first line of the third stanza and all those succeeding is written with a hanging indentation, i.e., the first line is at the right margin and the rest are indented. Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace Thus with your head upon my knee,— Whose look, whose voice, whose memory, Whose purse is in your thoughts, ma vie? 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 As it may sound—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 the crush to rest within, And from the sickness, and from the din Of women's envious mocking, which Mocks you because your gown is rich: And from the wise unchildish elf, Of schoolmate lesser than himself Looking, as you glide silently, Whether he knows what you may be, And then, in words well listened to, Teaching him lust and vice by you; But most from the beastliness of man blank page Who 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 By bed-time, Jenny, 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 does the ancient text begin,— Not of such rest as one of these May earn. 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. blank page 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 Except when there may come unsought, Haply, at times, a sudden thought Of her old days 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. blank page 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 Advertize dainties through the dirt; Have seen your coach-wheels splash rebuke On virtue; and have learnt your look When, health and wealth 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 shuts again, So the pages of her brain blank page Would part them 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? Nay, it reflects not any face, Nor sound is in its sluggish pace, But as they coil, the eddies clot, And memory remembers not. Why, Jenny, you're asleep, I said At first that with that drowsy head You ought to have gone straight to bed. 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. Here is one. blank page 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 full 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— For honour and dishonour made, 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? blank page 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 scorned! Shall no man hold his pride forewarned Till in the end, the Day of Days, At Judgment, one of his own race, As frail and lost as yore, 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 see singly! What might tend To give to each 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 still'd features thus descried As Jenny's long throat droops aside,— blank page The patient underlip drawn in, The shadows where the cheeks are thin And pure wide curve from ear to chin,— With Giotto's or Giorgione's hand To show them to men's souls,—might stand, The whole world long, the whole earth through, For preachings of what God can do. What has 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 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 This 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, blank page 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, Puddled with filthy knowledge, grows 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:— So are you to your sex, ma vie. But truly, looking long at you, The woman almost fades from view. A cypher of man's changeless sum Of lust, past, present, and to come, Is left. A riddle that one shrinks To challenge from the scornful sphynx. blank page Like a toad within a stone Seated while Time crumbles on; Which has sat there since earth was curs'd When man's seed sinned 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 Be cast—sits there, deaf, blind, alone;— Ah! and shall not be driven out Till the flint wrapping him about Break at the very Master's stroke And the dust thereof vanish as smoke When in the lamp the flame doth fail:— So are you in this world, ma belle. Come, come, what use in thoughts like this? I meant a woman good to kiss To night should yield me something more Than bloodless perking metaphor. Jenny, wake up. Why, there's the Dawn. And there's an early waggon, drawn To market; and some sheep that jog Bleating before a barking dog; And all as ghostlike as the lamps, blank page So on the wings of day decamps My last night's folly. Let her sleep. Will it not wake her, though, to heap These cushions underneath her head Where my knee was? No: there's your bed, My Jenny, while you dream. And there I lay among your outspread hair Perhaps the subject of your dreams, These golden coins. For still it seems That in my 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 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 the Park And though in the discounted dark blank page Her functions there and here are one,— Beneath the lamps and in the sun At least there reigns the explicit 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: Aye, or let offerings nicely plac'd But heap Priapus to the waist, And whoso looks on him shall see An eligible deity. Well, 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. And so I must talk lightly still, Ashamed to feel ashamed. Until To-night no thoughts not born amiss Rose at a poor fair face like this. If others come for once, 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.