Poems. Volume 3. George Meredith

knew she had been reading books,

      The which was witnessed by her looks

      Of late: she had a mania

      For mad folk in America,

      And said for sure they led the way,

      But meat and beer were meant to stay.

V

      That she had visited a fair,

      Had seen a gauzy lady there,

      Alive with tricks on legs alone,

      As good as wings, was also known:

      And longwhiles in a sullen mood,

      Before her jumping, Jane would brood.

VI

      A good knee’s height, they say, she sprang;

      Her arms and feet like those who hang:

      As if afire the body sped,

      And neither pair contributed.

      She jumped in silence: she was thought

      A corpse to resurrection caught.

VII

      The villagers were mostly dazed;

      They jeered, they wondered, and they praised.

      ’Twas guessed by some she was inspired,

      And some would have it she had hired

      An engine in her petticoats,

      To turn their wits and win their votes.

VIII

      Her first was Winny Earnes, a kind

      Of woman not to dance inclined;

      But she went up, entirely won,

      Ere Jump-to-glory Jane had done;

      And once a vixen wild for speech,

      She found the better way to preach.

IX

      No long time after, Jane was seen

      Directing jumps at Daddy Green;

      And that old man, to watch her fly,

      Had eyebrows made of arches high;

      Till homeward he likewise did hop,

      Oft calling on himself to stop!

X

      It was a scene when man and maid,

      Abandoning all other trade,

      And careless of the call to meals,

      Went jumping at the woman’s heels.

      By dozens they were counted soon,

      Without a sound to tell their tune.

XI

      Along the roads they came, and crossed

      The fields, and o’er the hills were lost,

      And in the evening reappeared;

      Then short like hobbled horses reared,

      And down upon the grass they plumped:

      Alone their Jane to glory jumped.

XII

      At morn they rose, to see her spring

      All going as an engine thing;

      And lighter than the gossamer

      She led the bobbers following her,

      Past old acquaintances, and where

      They made the stranger stupid stare.

XIII

      When turnips were a filling crop,

      In scorn they jumped a butcher’s shop:

      Or, spite of threats to flog and souse,

      They jumped for shame a public-house:

      And much their legs were seized with rage

      If passing by the vicarage.

XIV

      The tightness of a hempen rope

      Their bodies got; but laundry soap

      Not handsomer can rub the skin

      For token of the washed within.

      Occasionally coughers cast

      A leg aloft and coughed their last.

XV

      The weaker maids and some old men,

      Requiring rafters for the pen

      On rainy nights, were those who fell.

      The rest were quite a miracle,

      Refreshed as you may search all round

      On Club-feast days and cry, Not found!

XVI

      For these poor innocents, that slept

      Against the sky, soft women wept:

      For never did they any theft;

      ’Twas known when they their camping left,

      And jumped the cold out of their rags;

      In spirit rich as money-bags.

XVII

      They jumped the question, jumped reply;

      And whether to insist, deny,

      Reprove, persuade, they jumped in ranks

      Or singly, straight the arms to flanks,

      And straight the legs, with just a knee

      For bending in a mild degree.

XVIII

      The villagers might call them mad;

      An endless holiday they had,

      Of pleasure in a serious work:

      They taught by leaps where perils lurk,

      And with the lambkins practised sports

      For ’scaping Satan’s pounds and quarts.

XIX

      It really seemed on certain days,

      When they bobbed up their Lord to praise,

      And bobbing up they caught the glance

      Of light, our secret is to dance,

      And hold the tongue from hindering peace;

      To dance out preacher and police.

XX

      Those flies of boys disturbed them sore

      On Sundays and when daylight wore:

      With withies cut from hedge or copse,

      They treated them as whipping-tops,

      And flung big stones with cruel aim;

      Yet all the flock jumped on the same.

XXI

      For what could persecution do

      To worry such a blessed crew,

      On whom it was as wind to fire,

      Which set them always jumping higher?

      The parson and the lawyer tried,

      By meek persistency defied.

XXII

      But if they bore, they could pursue

      As well, and this the Bishop too;

      When inner warnings proved him plain

      The chase for Jump-to-glory Jane.

      She knew it by his being sent

      To bless the feasting in the tent.

XXIII

      Not less than fifty years on end,

      The Squire