Томас Гарди (Харди) (Thomas Hardy)

The Dance at the Phœnix

  To Jenny came a gentle youth 
      From inland leazes lone, 
  His love was fresh as apple-blooth 
  	By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone. 
  And duly he entreated her 
  To be his tender minister, 
  	And take him for her own. 
  
  Now Jenny’s life had hardly been 
  	A life of modesty; 
  And few in Casterbridge had seen 
  	More loves of sorts than she 
  From scarcely sixteen years above; 
  Among them sundry troopers of 
  	The King’s-Own Cavalry. 
  
  But each with charger, sword, and gun, 
  	Had bluffed the Biscay wave; 
  And Jenny prized her rural one 
  	For all the love he gave. 
  She vowed to be, if they were wed, 
  His honest wife in heart and head 
  	From bride-ale hour to grave. 
  
  Wedded they were. Her husband’s trust 
  	In Jenny knew no bound, 
  And Jenny kept her pure and just, 
  	Till even malice found 
  No sin or sign of ill to be 
  In one who walked so decently 
  	The duteous helpmate’s round. 
  
  Two sons were born, and bloomed to men, 
  	And roamed, and were as not: 
  Alone was Jenny left again 
  	As ere her mind had sought 
  A solace in domestic joys, 
  And ere the vanished pair of boys 
  	Were sent to sun her cot. 
  
  She numbered near on sixty years, 
  	And passed as elderly, 
  When, on a day, with flushing fears, 
  	She learnt from shouts of glee, 
  And 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 head 
  	Anigh 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 anew 
  	As they moved me of yore!’ . . . 
  
  ’Twas Christmas, and the Phœnix Inn 
  	Was lit with tapers tall, 
  For thirty of the trooper men 
  	Had vowed to give a ball 
  As ‘Theirs’ had done (’twas handed down) 
  When lying in the selfsame town 
  	Ere Buonapart?’s fall. 
  
  That night the throbbing ‘Soldier’s Joy’, 
  	The measured tread and sway 
  Of ‘Fancy-Lad’ and ‘Maiden Coy’, 
  	Reached Jenny as she lay 
  Beside her spouse; till springtide blood 
  Seemed scouring through her like a flood 
  	That whisked the years away. 
  
  She rose, arrayed, and decked her head 
  	Where the bleached hairs grew thin; 
  Upon her cap two bows of red 
  	She 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 sound 
  	Disturbed the icy air; 
  No watchman on his midnight round 
  	Or 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 stride 
  	Checked 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!’ 
  	The steward said; ‘for see,
  We lack sufficient partners still, 
  	So, prithee let her be!’ 
  They seized and whirled her mid the maze, 
  And Jenny felt as in the days 
  	Of 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 had learnt ere art in dancing drooped 
  	From 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 went four, 
  When Jenny, bosom-beating, rose 
  	To seek her silent door. 
  They tiptoed in escorting her, 
  Lest stroke of heel or clink of spur 
  	Should break her goodman’s snore. 
  
  The fire that lately burnt fell slack 
  	When lone at last was she; 
  Her nine-and-fifty years came back; 
  	She sank upon her knee 
  Beside the durn, and like a dart 
  A something arrowed through her heart 
  	In shoots of agony. 
  
  Their footsteps died as she leant there, 
  	Lit by the morning star 
  Hanging above the moorland, where 
  	The aged elm-rows are; 
  As overnight, from Pummery Ridge 
  To Maembury Ring and Standfast Bridge 
  	No life stirred, near or far. 
  
  Though inner mischief worked amain, 
  	She reached her husband’s side; 
  Where, toil-weary, as he had lain 
  	Beneath the patchwork pied 
  When forthward yestereve she crept, 
  And as unwitting, still he slept 
  	Who did in her confide. 
  
  A tear sprang as she turned and viewed 
  	His features free from guile; 
  She kissed him long, as when, just wooed, 
  	She chose his domicile. 
  She felt she would give more than life 
  To be the single-hearted wife 
  	That she had been erstwhile. . . . 
  
  Time wore to six. Her husband rose 
  	And struck the steel and stone; 
  He glanced at Jenny, whose repose 
  	Seemed 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 strain 
  	For one so many-yeared 
  Had burst her bosom’s master-vein, 
  	His doubts remained unstirred. 
  His Jenny had not left his side 
  Betwixt 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 Casterbridge 
  And vanished over Mellstock Ridge, 
  	’Twas saddest morn to see.

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