| Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | Songs and Ballads.
VI. Crippled Jane | | By Caroline Elizabeth Sarah (Sheridan) Norton (1808–1877) |
| | | THEY said she might recover, if we sent her down to the sea, | |
| But that is for rich men’s children, and we knew it could not be: | |
| So she lived at home in the Lincolnshire Fens, and we saw her, day by day, | |
| Grow pale, and stunted, and crooked; till her last chance died away. | |
| And now I’m dying; and often, when you thought that I moaned with pain, | 5 |
| I was moaning a prayer to Heaven, and thinking of Crippled Jane. | |
| Folks will be kind to Johnny; his temper is merry and light; | |
| With so much love in his honest eyes, and a sturdy sense of right. | |
| And no one could quarrel with Susan; so pious, and meek, and mild, | |
| And nearly as wise as a woman, for all that she looks such a child! | 10 |
| But Jane will be weird and wayward; fierce, and cunning, and hard; | |
| She won’t believe she’s a burden, be thankful, nor win regard.— | |
| God have mercy upon her! God be her guard and guide; | |
| How will strangers bear with her, when, at times, even I felt tried? | |
| When the ugly smile of pleasure goes over her sallow face, | 15 |
| And the feeling of health, for an hour, quickens her languid pace; | |
| When with dwarfish strength she rises, and plucks, with a selfish hand, | |
| The busiest person near her, to lead her out on the land; | |
| Or when she sits in some corner, no one’s companion or care, | |
| Huddled up in some darksome passage, or crouched on a step of the stair; | 20 |
| While far off the children are playing, and the birds singing loud in the sky, | |
| And she looks through the cloud of her headache, to scowl at the passers-by | |
| I die—God have pity upon her!—how happy rich men must be!— | |
| For they said she might have recovered—if we sent her down to the sea. | | | | |
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