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 Jane around communicate:

For that the moment when began
The holy but mistaken man,

In view of light, to take his lift,
They cut him from her charm adrift!

XXXIII
And he was lost: a banished face

For ever from the ways of grace,
Unless pinched hard by dreams in fright.

They saw the Bishop's wavering sprite
Within her look, at come and go,

Long after he had caused her woe.
XXXIV

Her greying eyes (until she sank
At Fredsham on the wayside bank,

Like cinder heaps that whitened lie
From coals that shot the flame to sky)

Had glassy vacancies, which yearned
For one in memory discerned.

XXXV
May those who ply the tongue that cheats,

And those who rush to beer and meats,
And those whose mean ambition aims

At palaces and titled names,
Depart in such a cheerful strain

As did our Jump-to-glory Jane!
XXXVI

Her end was beautiful: one sigh.
She jumped a foot when it was nigh.

A lily in a linen clout
She looked when they had laid her out.

It is a lily-light she bears
For England up the ladder-stairs.

THE RIDDLE FOR MEN
I

This Riddle rede or die,
Says History since our Flood,

To warn her sons of power:-
It can be truth, it can be lie;

Be parasite to twist awry;
The drouthy vampire for your blood;

The fountain of the silver flower;
A brand, a lure, a web, a crest;

Supple of wax or tempered steel;
The spur to honour, snake in nest:

'Tis as you will with it to deal;
To wear upon the breast,

Or trample under heel.
II

And rede you not aright,
Says Nature, still in red

Shall History's tale be writ!
For solely thus you lead to light

The trailing chapters she must write,
And pass my fiery test of dead

Or living through the furnace-pit:
Dislinked from who the softer hold

In grip of brute, and brute remain:
Of whom the woeful tale is told,

How for one short Sultanic reign,
Their bodies lapse to mould,

Their souls behowl the plain.
THE SAGE ENAMOURED AND THE HONEST LADY

I
One fairest of the ripe unwedded left

Her shadow on the Sage's path; he found,
By common signs, that she had done a theft.

He could have made the sovereign heights resound
With questions of the wherefore of her state:

He on far other but an hour before
Intent. And was it man, or was it mate,

That she disdained? or was there haply more?
About her mouth a placidhumour slipped

The dimple, as you see smooth lakes at eve

• persuade [pə´sweid] v.(被)说服；使相信 (初中英语单词)
• holiday [´hɔlidi] n.假日，假期，节日 (初中英语单词)
• daylight [´deilait] n.日光；黎明 (初中英语单词)
• lawyer [´lɔ:jə] n.律师；法学家 (初中英语单词)
• bishop [´biʃəp] n.主教 (初中英语单词)
• squire [skwaiə] n.护卫，侍从；乡绅 (初中英语单词)
• evident [´evidənt] a.明显的，明白的 (初中英语单词)
• inquiry [in´kwaiəri] n.询问；质询；调查 (初中英语单词)
• infant [´infənt] n.&a.婴(幼)儿 (初中英语单词)
• patience [´peiʃəns] n.忍耐(力)；耐心；坚韧 (初中英语单词)
• sacred [´seikrid] a.神圣的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
• mostly [´məustli] ad.主要地；多半；通常 (初中英语单词)
• knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
• ambition [æm´biʃən] n.雄心，野心；企图 (初中英语单词)
• cheerful [´tʃiəful] a.快乐的；高兴的 (初中英语单词)
• fountain [´fauntin] n.泉水；源泉；根源 (初中英语单词)
• sovereign [´sɔvrin] a.至高无上的 n.君主 (初中英语单词)
• humour [´hju:mə] n.幽默，诙谐 (初中英语单词)
• preacher [´pri:tʃə] n.讲道者，传教士 (高中英语单词)
• parson [´pɑ:sən] n.教区牧师 (高中英语单词)
• harmless [´hɑ:mləs] a.无害的，无恶意的 (高中英语单词)
• beware [bi´weə] v.(用于祈使句)谨防 (高中英语单词)
• mortal [´mɔ:tl] a.致命的 n.凡人 (高中英语单词)
• earthly [´ə:θli] a.地球的；世俗的 (高中英语单词)
• mistaken [mis´teikən] mistake的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
• riddle [´ridl] n.谜(语) v.解(谜等) (高中英语单词)
• trample [´træmpəl] v.&n.践踏；蹂躏；踩坏 (高中英语单词)
• solely [´səulli] ad.唯一；单独；完全 (高中英语单词)
• laundry [´lɔ:ndri] n.洗衣店；待洗的衣服 (英语四级单词)
• persecution [,pə:si´kju:ʃən] n.迫害；残害；困扰 (英语四级单词)
• blessed [´blesid] a.享福的；神圣的 (英语四级单词)
• eloquent [´eləkwənt] a.流利的；雄辩的 (英语四级单词)
• cinder [´sində] n.炉渣；灰烬 (英语四级单词)
• wherefore [´weəfɔ:] ad.为什么；因此 (英语四级单词)
• placid [´plæsid] a.平静的；温和的 (英语四级单词)
• speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
• charger [´tʃɑ:dʒə] n.军马；委托者；控诉者 (英语六级单词)
• wayside [´weisaid] n.&a.路边(的) (英语六级单词)
• glassy [´glɑ:si] a.光滑的；无神的 (英语六级单词)
• parasite [´pærəsait] n.寄生动(植)物；食客 (英语六级单词)
• dimple [´dimpəl] n.酒窝 v.(使)现酒窝 (英语六级单词)