Poems of George Meredith, vol 3 | Page 4

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 had been the Bishop's friend:?And his poor tenants, harmless ones,?With souls to save! fed not on buns,?But angry meats: she took her place?Outside to show the way to grace.
XXIV
In apron suit the Bishop stood;?The crowding people kindly viewed.?A gaunt grey woman he saw rise?On air, with most beseeching eyes:?And evident as light in dark?It was, she set to him for mark.
XXV
Her highest leap had come: with ease?She jumped to reach the Bishop's knees:?Compressing tight her arms and lips,?She sought to jump the Bishop's hips:?Her aim flew at his apron-band,?That he might see and understand.
XXVI
The mild inquiry of his gaze?Was altered to a peaked amaze,?At sight of thirty in ascent,?To gain his notice clearly bent:?And greatly Jane at heart was vexed?By his ploughed look of mind perplexed.
XXVII
In jumps that said, Beware the pit!?More eloquent than speaking it -?That said, Avoid the boiled, the roast;?The heated nose on face of ghost,?Which comes of drinking: up and o'er?The flesh with me! did Jane implore.
XXVIII
She jumped him high as huntsmen go?Across the gate; she jumped him low,?To coax him to begin and feel?His infant steps returning, peel?His mortal pride, exposing fruit,?And off with hat and apron suit.
XXIX
We need much patience, well she knew,?And out and out, and through and through,?When we would gentlefolk address,?However we may seek to bless:?At times they hide them like the beasts?From sacred beams; and mostly priests.
XXX
He gave no sign of making bare,?Nor she of faintness or despair.?Inflamed with hope that she might win,?If she but coaxed him to begin,?She used all arts for making fain;?The mother with her babe was Jane.
XXXI
Now stamped the Squire, and knowing not?Her business, waved her from the spot.?Encircled by the men of might,?The head of Jane, like flickering light,?As in a charger, they beheld?Ere she was from the park expelled.
XXXII
Her grief, in jumps of earthly weight,?Did