Through thirsting lips should draw Love's grace,

And in the zone of that supreme embrace

Bind aching breast and brow.

water whispering

Still through the dark into mine ears,— As with mine eyes, is it not now with hers?—

Mine eyes that add to thy cold spring,

Wan water, wandering water weltering,

This hidden tide of tears.

.

JENNY.

Vengeance of Jenny's case! Fie on her! Never name her, child!'-(Mrs. Quickly.)

LAZY laughing languid Jenny,

Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea,
Whose head upon my knee to-night

Rests for a while, as if grown light

With all our dances and the sound
To which the wild tunes spun you round:
Fair Jenny mine, the thoughtless queen

Of kisses which the blush between

Could hardly make much daintier;

Whose eyes are as blue skies, whose hair
Is countless gold incomparable:

Fresh flower, scarce touched with signs that tell

Of Love's exuberant hotbed :-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 person or whose purse may be
The lodestar of your reverie?

This room of yours, my Jenny, looks A change from mine so full of books, Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth, So many 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, 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 scarce so strange

Not long ago. What breeds the change,-

The many aims or the few years?
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 it turn and swim

While hour by hour the books grew dim.
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 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,

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 pale girl's dumb rebuke,
Whose ill-clad grace and toil-worn look
Proclaim the strength that keeps her weak
And other nights than yours 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
Who spares not to end what he began,