The poem opens with the speaker in the living quarters of a prostitute named Jenny. She is tired and falls asleep on his knee as he regards her. The speaker spends most of Stanza 1 of the poem describing Jenny's physical beauty, noting, for example, that her hair is "countless gold incomparable" and that her eyes are as blue as the sky (11).
In Stanza 2, the speaker describes Jenny's room and compares it to his own. He thinks about his own scholarship as an academic and remembers the night he had with Jenny before they went back to her room. In Stanza 3, the speaker reflects on his past, noting that while he used to visit prostitutes while he was younger, he no longer does so.
In Stanza 4, the speaker contemplates Jenny's physical features and compares her to a book. In Stanza 5, the speaker wonders about Jenny's dreams and whether or not they are about him. Assuming they are about him, he wonders how exactly he is portrayed in Jenny's mind.
In Stanza 6, the speaker imagines Jenny's day-to-day struggles as a prostitute. He pictures the rest of the city abusing Jenny because of her perceived lack of modesty or honor. In Stanza 7, the speaker almost tries to wake Jenny up because he wants to distract himself from the thoughts of Jenny's painful life.
In Stanza 8, the speaker alludes to lilies in order to further describe Jenny's state and to suggest that it is not her fault, but instead the fault of the "husbandman" that she is the way she is (107). In Stanza 9, the speaker applies the allusion in the previous stanza to Jenny, and wonders whether she is in the "winter" of her life (111).
In Stanza 10, the speaker notes that whether or not she will whither in the future, Jenny still seems to be in the spring of youth. He imagines the "old days" when Jenny was simply a child and was free to lay "through the blown grass" and look at the city from afar (130). In Stanza 11, the speaker notes how the city (which is London) has affected Jenny and turned her into a less-moral creature.
In Stanza 12, the speaker moves his attention to Jenny's mind and decides that her mind has been damaged by her profession to the point where she cannot even remember "night and day" (169). In Stanza 13, the speaker realizes that Jenny has finally fallen asleep and he takes this opportunity to think about her physical beauty some more.
In Stanza 14, the speaker is surprised to realize that Jenny sleeps the same way all women sleep. In Stanza 15, the speaker considers what would happen to a person who came from the same "clay" that made Jenny but instead led a virtuous life. The person that he considers in this position is his cousin Nell, and he describes her within this stanza, emphasizing how virtuous she is.
In Stanza 16, the speaker emphasizes that he is conducting a thought experiment in which he imagines that these two women—Jenny and Nell—originated from the "same lump" of clay. In Stanza 17, he reveals that to make such a comparison would "mak[e] a goblin of the sun" (205). In other words, Jenny and Nell are incomparable, and comparing them would be like trying to compare a "goblin" and the "sun."
In Stanza 18, the speaker digests what he has just learned and consoles Jenny that there might be a day when Nell's grandchildren will need something from Jenny's grandchildren. On that day, Nell's children would be "scorned" like Jenny was during her life (212). In Stanza 19, the speaker worries about the passing of time, and questions whether or not Jenny's time is up. He also questions whether or not we are responsible for the outcome of our own lives if we don't know what fate has in store for us.
In Stanza 20, the speaker compares Jenny's face to artistic representations of women in the Renaissance. He blames man for Jenny's current state and questions the chances of her being allowed into Heaven. In Stanza 21, the speaker wishes that a pure woman could come into contact with Jenny without hurting herself in the process. In Stanza 22, the speaker develops the claim from Stanza 21. He compares Jenny to a rose that's being pressed in a book and that is slowly being destroyed. Pure women would look upon such a rose and feel pity, which would cause them to "love roses better"—an impossible situation, because of their purity (270).
In Stanza 23, the speaker turns his attention back on Jenny, and he sees her this time as more of an object or a symbol. In Stanza 24, the speaker introduces a metaphor of a toad trapped within a stone. The toad stands for lust, and the same way that it is stuck inside the stone is the way that lust is stuck in the world.
In Stanza 25, the speaker questions the use of his musings and then is surprised to see that it is dawn. In Stanza 26, the speaker describes the scene outside Jenny's window and notes that London's nighttime streets are receding in the face of the daytime streets. In Stanza 27, the speaker emphasizes that his time with Jenny is coming to a close and imagines how she will react when she wakes up alone.
In Stanza 28, the speaker hears sparrows outside Jenny's window began to caw, and Jenny's pet bird responds to them from inside its cage. In Stanza 29, the speaker realizes that even though it's dawn, Jenny still looks tired and in need of sleep. He tries to shift out from underneath her by placing pillows under her head. He leaves gold coins in her hair and wonders for the last time about her dreams.
In Stanza 30, the speaker underlines the fact that Jenny is not what she seems, like a "Paphian Venus" or Priapus with something covering his waist. In Stanza 31, the speaker imagines how Jenny will react to waking up after he has left, with the gold coins in her hair. In Stanza 32, the speaker assures Jenny that his "love rang true" (374).
In Stanza 33, the speaker admits that he is "ashamed of [his] own shame" when it comes to Jenny, but that he can take a lesson from his time with her to avoid sin (378). In Stanza 34, the speaker kisses Jenny and then leaves her room.
