The London sparrows far and nigh
Clamour together suddenly;

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Among stirred clouds and veils withdrawn
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,

My Jenny, while you dream.

I lay among your golden hair

there's your bed,

And there

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,

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 (divine
For her) the 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 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 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.

Why, Jenny, waking here alone
May help you to remember one,
Though all the memory's long outworn
Of many a double-pillowed morn.

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?
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.

THE PORTRAIT.

THIS is her picture as she was :
It seems a thing to wonder on,
As though mine image in the glass
Should tarry when myself am gone

I gaze until she seems to stir,-
Until mine eyes almost aver

That now, even now, the sweet lips part

To breathe the words of the sweet heart :

And yet the earth is over her.

Alas! even such the thin-drawn ray

That makes the prison-depths more rude,--

The drip of water night and day

Giving a tongue to solitude.

Yet only this, of love's whole prize,

Remains; save what in mournful guise

Takes counsel with my soul alone,—

Save what is secret and unknown,

Below the earth, above the skies.

In painting her I shrined her face

Mid mystic trees, where light falls in Hardly at all; a covert place

Where you might think to find a din Of doubtful talk, and a live flame Wandering, and many a shape whose name Not itself knoweth, and old dew,

And your own footsteps meeting you, And all things going as they came.

A deep dim wood; and there she stands
As in that wood that day: for so
Was the still movement of her hands

And such the pure line's gracious flow.
And passing fair the type must seem,
Unknown the presence and the dream.
'Tis she though of herself, alas!
Less than her shadow on the grass
Or than her image in the stream.

That day we met there, I and she
One with the other all alone;
And we were blithe; yet memory

Saddens those hours, as when the moon