Poems of George Meredith, vol 3 | Page 4

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 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