The Dance at the Phœnix

TO Jenny came a gentle youthFrom inland leazes lone,His love was fresh as apple-bloothBy Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.And duly he entreated herTo be his tender minister,And call him aye her own.

Fair Jenny’s life had hardly beenA life of modesty;At Casterbridge experience keenOf many loves had sheFrom scarcely sixteen years above;Among them sundry troopers ofThe King’s-Own Cavalry.

But each with charger, sword, and gun,Had bluffed the Biscay wave;And Jenny prized her gentle oneFor all the love he gave.She vowed to be, if they were wed,His honest wife in heart and headFrom bride-ale hour to grave.

Wedded they were. Her husband’s trustIn Jenny knew no bound,And Jenny kept her pure and just,Till even malice foundNo sin or sign of ill to beIn one who walked so decentlyThe duteous helpmate’s round.

Two sons were born, and bloomed to men,And roamed, and were as not:Alone was Jenny left againAs ere her mind had soughtA solace in domestic joys,And ere the vanished pair of boysWere sent to sun her cot.

She numbered near on sixty years,And passed as elderly,When, in the street, with flush of fears,One day discovered she,From shine of swords and thump of drum.Her early loves from war had come,The King’s-Own Cavalry.

She turned aside, and bowed her headAnigh Saint Peter’s door;“Alas for chastened thoughts!” she said;“I’m faded now, and hoar,And yet those notes—they thrill me through,And those gay forms move me anewAs in the years of yore!” . . .

’Twas Christmas, and the Phœnix InnWas lit with tapers tall,For thirty of the trooper menHad vowed to give a ballAs “Theirs” had done (’twas handed down)When lying in the selfsame townEre Buonaparté’s fall.

That night the throbbing “Soldier’s Joy,”The measured tread and swayOf “Fancy-Lad” and “Maiden Coy,”Reached Jenny as she layBeside her spouse; till springtide bloodSeemed scouring through her like a floodThat whisked the years away.

She rose, and rayed, and decked her headWhere the bleached hairs ran thin;Upon her cap two bows of redShe fixed with hasty pin;Unheard descending to the street,She trod the flags with tune-led feet,And stood before the Inn.

Save for the dancers’, not a soundDisturbed the icy air;No watchman on his midnight roundOr traveller was there;But over All-Saints’, high and bright,Pulsed to the music Sirius white,The Wain by Bullstake Square.

She knocked, but found her further strideChecked by a sergeant tall:“Gay Granny, whence come you?” he cried;“This is a private ball.”—“No one has more right here than me!Ere you were born, man,” answered she,“I knew the regiment all!”

“Take not the lady’s visit ill!”Upspoke the steward free;“We lack sufficient partners still,So, prithee let her be!”They seized and whirled her ’mid the maze,And Jenny felt as in the daysOf her immodesty.

Hour chased each hour, and night advanced;She sped as shod with wings;Each time and every time she danced—Reels, jigs, poussettes, and flings:They cheered her as she soared and swooped,(She’d learnt ere art in dancing droopedFrom hops to slothful swings).

The favourite Quick-step “Speed the Plough”—(Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)—“The Triumph,” “Sylph,” “The Row-dow-dow,”Famed “Major Malley’s Reel,”“The Duke of York’s,” “The Fairy Dance,”“The Bridge of Lodi” (brought from France),She beat out, toe and heel.

The “Fall of Paris” clanged its close,And Peter’s chime told four,When Jenny, bosom-beating, roseTo seek her silent door.They tiptoed in escorting her,Lest stroke of heel or clink of spurShould break her goodman’s snore.

The fire that late had burnt fell slackWhen lone at last stood she;Her nine-and-fifty years came back;She sank upon her kneeBeside the durn, and like a dartA something arrowed through her heartIn shoots of agony.

Their footsteps died as she leant there,Lit by the morning starHanging above the moorland, whereThe aged elm-rows are;And, as o’ernight, from Pummery RidgeTo Maembury Ring and Standfast BridgeNo life stirred, near or far.

Though inner mischief worked amain,She reached her husband’s side;Where, toil-weary, as he had lainBeneath the patchwork piedWhen yestereve she’d forthward crept,And as unwitting, still he sleptWho did in her confide.

A tear sprang as she turned and viewedHis features free from guile;She kissed him long, as when, just wooed,She chose his domicile.She felt she could have given her lifeTo be the single-hearted wifeThat she had been erstwhile.

Time wore to six. Her husband roseAnd struck the steel and stone;He glanced at Jenny, whose reposeSeemed deeper than his own.With dumb dismay, on closer sight,He gathered sense that in the night,Or morn, her soul had flown.

When told that some too mighty strainFor one so many-yearedHad burst her bosom’s master-vein,His doubts remained unstirred.His Jenny had not left his sideBetwixt the eve and morning-tide:—The King’s said not a word.

Well! times are not as times were then,Nor fair ones half so free;And truly they were martial men,The King’s-Own Cavalry.And when they went from CasterbridgeAnd vanished over Mellstock Ridge,’Twas saddest morn to see.