Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold :: :: University of Virginia Library

I've a sneaking respect for “Mad Jane”
And her mission,
Which veers like a vane
With the chapel's last fission;
For, though filthy, untrue,
And unchaste as the rest,
With light fingers for all that may chance to accrue,
There's a spark of religion down in her dim breast;
Ah, she knows she's a desperate sinner—
Mere dregs,
But her legs
Take her faster to sermons than dinner.

She appears out of place, poor “Mad Jane,”
In that quarter
Of blackness and bane,
Like a fish out of water;
Her quavering voice
Can fling curses about,
And she does, but she vastly prefers to rejoice
With the hymn-book she never was once seen without;
And it is not all humbug and shamming,
I know,
If her flow
Of strong words takes so kindly to damning.

539

There's a burden that rests on “Mad Jane,”
And a story
Like a long crooked lane,
To help people to glory;
And when tipsy she yet
Is inspired by that zeal,
And that passion consuming she cannot forget
With its terrible calling she will not conceal;
With her menacing arm like a prophet
She raves,
Till the graves
Might awaken—and souls down in Tophet.

She is grey and dishevelled, “Mad Jane,”
And so bony;
Her spirits can't wane,
With the cup as her crony;
When she stutters and storms
“Hallelujah” I join,
And I think of repentance and turn to reforms,
While my hands in my coat grope about for a coin;
Though next minute the preacher may stumble
And flop,
From a drop
Just too much, yet I go away humble.