"Why, as a volume seldom read / 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."
— Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
F. S. Ellis
Date
April 26 1870
Metaphor
"Why, as a volume seldom read / 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."
Metaphor in Context
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
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?
Nay, it reflects not any face,
Nor sound is in its sluggish pace,
But as they coil those eddies clot,
And night and day remember not.
(p. 116, ll. 155-170)
Suppose I were to think aloud,—
What if to her all this were said?
Why, as a volume seldom read
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?
Nay, it reflects not any face,
Nor sound is in its sluggish pace,
But as they coil those eddies clot,
And night and day remember not.
(p. 116, ll. 155-170)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Rosetti, D.G. "Jenny." Poems. London: F.S. Ellis, 1870. <Link to the Rossetti Archive>
Date of Entry
12/10/2009
