Flowers (Symbol)
Jenny is compared to both a lily and a rose in Stanzas 8 and 9.
What, Jenny, are your lilies dead?
Aye, and the snow white leaves are spread
Like winter on the garden bed.
But you had roses left in May,—
They were not gone too. Jenny, nay,
But must your roses die, and those
Their purfuled buds that should unclose?
Even so; the leaves are curled apart,
Still red as from the broken heart,
And here's the naked stem of thorns (110-9).
It is apparent that the speaker is using flowers in these lines to symbolize Jenny's purity and youth. He doesn't want Jenny's lilies to be dead, but he knows that they are. She is in the "winter" of her life, meaning that all possibility is over and she might as well be close to death, in the speaker's eyes. He notes that time has passed quickly for Jenny, since she was innocent and pure in the Spring. Now that winter is here, however, her life is over. He futilely questions whether or not Jenny must lose her purity: "But must your roses die, and those / their purfuled buds that should unclose?" He knows that whether or not Jenny's flowers "must" or "should" whither away they already have, as he can see "the leaves are curled apart."
This symbol arises again in Stanza 22, when the speaker compares Jenny to "a rose shut in a book" (250). The "book" is Jenny's impure profession and the "rose" stands for Jenny's purity. She is stuck in this book, unable to leave. Pure women cannot look at this book for fear of hurting their own purity: "its base pages claim control / To crush the flower within the soul" (252-3).
Hair (Symbol)
Hair is often used as a symbol of female sexuality. We see this across Victorian literature and in many of Rossetti's paintings. In this poem, in particular, the speaker likens Jenny's hair as an economic product, which speaks to Jenny's profession as a prostitute. Because Jenny's profession means that she is essentially selling her body, Jenny's hair both adds to her beauty and is a commodity that can be bought or sold.
The speaker describes Jenny's hair as "countless gold incomparable" (11). The fact that it is "gold" suggests that it is valuable in the speaker's eyes and in the eyes of society. Similarly, the speaker mentions Jenny's "wealth of loosened hair" (46). Even if Jenny does not have material wealth, her hair adds to her value. The fact that her hair is "loosened" means that the speaker is with her in an intimate moment, and his gaze upon her is sexually charged even though they are not committing any decent acts.
At the end of the poem, the speaker accounts for Jenny's position as he sleeps: "And there / I lay among your golden hair / Perhaps the subject of your dreams, / These golden coins" (332-5). He wonders whether Jenny is dreaming about himself or his "golden coins." At the very end of the poem, the speaker places coins in Jenny's hair as he leaves. This underscores the fact that Jenny's hair stands for her sexuality. Even if she and the speaker never engaged in intercourse, they still had an exchange of some sort that the speaker feels compelled to pay her for.
