Poems (Holley)/Jenny Allen

by Marietta Holley

JENNY ALLEN.

I never shall hear your voice again,
 Your voice so gentle and low;
But the thought of you, Jenny Allen,
 Will go with me where I go.
Your sweet voice drowns the Atlantic wave
 And the rush of the Alpine snow.

You were very fair, Jenny Allen,
 Fair as a woodland rose;
Your heart was pure as an angel's heart,
 Too good for earth and its woes,
And I loved you, Jenny Allen,
 With a sorrowful love, God knows.

You loved me, Jenny Allen,
 My sorrow made me wise;
And I read your heart, 'twas an easy task,
 For within your clear blue eyes,
Your pure and innocent thoughts shone out
 Like stars from the summer skies.

He had riches and fame with his seventy years
 When he won you for his wife;
You were but a child, and poor, and tired,
 Tired of toil and strife;
And you only thought of rest, poor dove,
 When you sold your beautiful life.

Alas, for the hour I entered in
 Your halls of lordly mirth;
For I lost there, Jenny Allen,
 All that gives life worth;
You taught your teacher, Jenny,
 The saddest lesson of earth.

Ah, woe's the hour I ever stepped
 Your mansion walls within;
For you loved me, Jenny Allen,
 But you never dreamed 'twas sin;
Your heart was white as a lily's heart,
 When it drinks the sunshine in.

God pity me, Jenny Allen,
 That I ever loved you so,
I would have died to give you peace,
 And I only gave you woe;
For your eyes looked like a wounded dove's,
 When I told you I must go.

You were but a child, Jenny Allen,
 But that hour made you wise;
A woman's grief and holy strength
 Sprang up in your mournful eyes;
Ah, you were an angel, Jenny,
 An angel in woman's guise.

But a pitiful, pitiful look, Jenny,
 Your seraph features wore,
As I left you that dark autumn morn,
 Left you forevermore;
And heaven seemed shut against me
 As I blindly shut that door.

The years have rained on you golden gifts,
 You dwell in a queenly show;
There are jewels of price in your silken hair,
 And upon your neck of snow.
Do you ever think of me, Jenny,
 And the dream of the long ago?

I have sat me down under foreign skies
 Afire with an Orient glow;
I have seen the moon gild the desert sand,
 And silver the Arctic snow,
But the thought of you, Jenny Allen,
 Goes with me where I go.