Janet Fisher

WHERE Janet Fisher lived and died,
The Eastland marshes reach away
For miles on miles of either side,
A river desolately wide
That is itself as drear as they.

With tufts of purple marish flowers
The rough grey grass is islanded ;
The travelling thunder broods for hours
In gathered purple, when there lowers
The frequent tempest overhead.

Immense the eternal arch of sky ;
Immense — utterly barren, too —
The plain in which no mountains lie
To mar that vastness, bounded by
The far horizon's shadowy blue.

Only the river's gradual bend
Shows stunted willows set in rows,
Rank pasture, kine the children tend,
Blown curls of smoke that swerve and ascend
From leaning hovels clustered close.

For on this barren aguish swamp,
Even here is life, even here are men
To shake with palsy, stiffen with cramp,
To die ere fifty of the damp
And fetid vapours of the fen.

Though how a village came to grow
In such a vile and deathly air,
None knows ; it may be long ago
The outcast of some crime or woe,
Fleeing for refuge, sheltered there ;

And through the habit of their race,
Or fearing yet the wrath of men,
Their children settled in the place,
And reaped scant harvest, in the face
Of death, upon the poisonous fen.

And since the end was always near,
And life so hard ; and since they knew,
Save sloth and lust, no joys ; each year
They served their senses less in fear,
And more like beasts and viler grew.

Few friends were there, tho' all were kin :
There was much strife, and many raids ;
The hovels that they huddled in
Housed men whose brutal love was sin,
Nameless children, and shameless maids.

Even among this soulless herd
Lived Janet Fisher ; but she went
Along their streets, and no man stirred
Her quiet heart with look or word
To harm the village Innocent.

They meant she was an idiot born,
This one fair sight in foulest place ;
This girl as fresh as early morn ;
So fair — and yet too sad to scorn ;
Too sunk for any hind to embrace.

Their one fair thing ; their one thing good,
And she bereft of sense or will,
So were a mask of womanhood —
Sad, — but there was no heart to brood,
Upon the irremediable ill.

Yet crazy Janet found them kind —
They took her when her mother died
To live by turn with each ; to wind
Their well-ropes, bind their sheaves, and mind
Their cattle grazing far and wide.

Yet often by the river-brim
She strayed, scattering seeds and flowers,
To wade in clear green shallows, and swim
Against the stream ; or, through the dim
And quiet twilight, row for hours.

Day long, night long, her spirit slept,
And nothing shook the sullen drowse ;
Yet oft a shadowy pleasure crept
All through her, where the boats were kept,
Beneath the dangling willow boughs.

She was so strong, she liked to feel
Her rapid stroke lend wings to the boat ;
The water dashing against the keel ;
The wind in her face and hair ; the teal
And plovers crying; the weeds afloat.

Then only she — who was so far
Behind the merest child of all —
Was prouder, stronger, than others are ;
And she could row to the harbour bar
And back, ten miles, ere night-dews fall.

PART II.
But all the harvest long, forlorn,
Unloosed, the boat rocked to and fro
While Janet slept from eve till morn,
Dead-tired with gathering in the corn
From daybreak till the light was low.

How glad she was when autumn whirled
The slender yellowing willow leaves,
When all the plants looked shrivelled and curled,
And no more corn or fruit in the world
Was left to gather under eaves.

For then one evening, when the plain
Was strangely bright i' the sun, and black
With thunder and unfallen rain
The sky, she sought her boat again,
And bent the yielding branches back —

The thinning willow boughs — and found
A man half-stripped, beside the boat,
Burying hurriedly underground
And heaping yellow leaves around
A stained and faded soldier's coat.

She stood beside him, nothing loth
To watch his work unseen a span,
For she was neither scared nor wroth ;
The splendour of the scarlet cloth
Engrossed her, not the ragged man.

" Give me it !" eager Janet said
At last; the man who heard her shook
Alarmed, and turned his startled head.
He was as wan and grey as the dead,
And even Janet feared his look.

cc All's up," he moaned. " Ay, call them out!
I'm spent, you're strong," he moaned; — "hit hard,
I'm down. Don't stare so, woman ; shout !
Why, don't you know what you're about?
I'm a deserter — there's reward.

" I'm spent." But towards the scarlet coat
He saw unheeding Janet go;
Then turned, and turning saw the boat,
" Oh, God!" he cried, with straining throat,
"Girl, will you help me? I can row."

Poor Janet ! — all those prayers were vain
To reach the incommunicable
Dim soul in her ; and yet 'twas plain
He wished her, prayed her, to remain —
And one thing only she could do well.

She smiled. Her masters on the fen
Bade her : Do this, bear such a load,
Go there — for they were brutish men.
But this man spake her fair ; and then
She longed to show him how well she rowed.

Within her boat she took her stand ;
He followed her unquestioningly,
Got in, sat down, at her command ;
She pushed her boat off from the land,
And, with the current, sought the sea.

Fierce yellow sunlight, beetling clouds
Heaped up in blackness overhead ;
Still air in which the beasts were cowed,
And all the sounds were over-loud — •
Yet Janet felt no thrill of dread.

Inland the sea-mews fled, that know
The earliest tempest-mutterings ;
The swallows, skimming very low,
Dipped, and a livid western glow
Glanced off their sheeny underwings.

On through the ominous dusk the bark
That knew no fear, that had no soul,
Made for the sea. How should it hark
The wind, or see the air grow dark,
Or feel the widening waters roll ?

And soulless as itself, and rash,
Janet rowed on elate and proud ;
And thankful to escape the lash,
Her fellow heard no waters dash,
And did not see the gathering cloud.

Speechless he drowsed for many a mile,
Sunk to inert fatigue, half dead ;
At last : " It takes a long, long while,"
He muttered. Janet turned — her smile
Filled all his veins with sudden dread.

He started, shook the torpid drowse
Off him like water ; all around
The river heaved in waves ; and soughs
And moans of wind began to arouse
The storm ; he could not see the ground.

Black walls of stormy air shut in
The boat ; above, a gloomy vault
Shattered by lightning ; roar and din
Where sea and hurtling stream begin
Their desperate, endless rebuff and assault.

"Woman!" he shouted; "mad-woman! speak,—
Why did you let me sleep so long ?
Is it the sea, the sea, you seek ? "
The tears fell into the spray on her cheek :
" Help me," she wailed ; " I'm spent, you're strong. "

His words ! his prayer ! No safety, then,
If she were mad ; no means to avert
The end. Far backwards lay the fen,
And here, instead of a world of men,
A danger no man shall desert.

Had she gone mad, perhaps, from fright,
This woman? " Oh, my God! " he cried ;
“To be alone at sea by night ;
Lost in a storm — no hope, no light ;
A maniac for my only guide! "

She crouched upon the lowest plank
And cried, and dashed her hands in the wave
That drenched her dress, and made so lank,
And straight her hair — that slowly sank
Them down towards the engulfing grave.

The man stooped down and looked at her,
Half-blind with swirling spray of the sea.
Horror, impotent wrath, despair
At heart. What did she say? A prayer ?
"Poor crazy Janet; pity me!"

Then he was lost in very truth —
How wild his hope ! how vain his trust !
This woman — this, his angel of ruth —
Had lured him to his death ; in sooth,
To kill her would be merely just.

Should he kill her ? Sea and sky,
In answering storms heaved up, hung down ;
They seemed to touch, they met so nigh,
One moment more all else must die :
Why should he kill her ? Let her drown !

" Help me!" she shrieked. But who could swim
In such a sea, — a toppling bank
Of waves. She sprang, and clung to him ;
Then noise, hate, storm, death, all grew dim ;
He caught her — tried to save her — sank.

But when the storm was stilled at last,
The fishers found him on the strand,
One arm stretched out, still battling past
The waves, it seemed, and clasping fast
A woman's corpse with one stiff hand.

They knew him not, but her they knew ;
Poor Janet, missed a day and night,
Then wind-uncovered, stained with de\v;
They found the coat; the wonder grew,
And the sad story came to light.