The Complete Poetical Works. Томас Харди

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       “I’m faded now, and hoar,

       And yet those notes—they thrill me through,

       And those gay forms move me anew

       As in the years 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 Buonaparté’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, and rayed, and decked her head

       Where the bleached hairs ran 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!”

       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 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’d 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 told 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 late had burnt fell slack

       When lone at last stood 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;

       And, as o’ernight, 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 yestereve she’d forthward 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 could have given her life

       To be the single-hearted wife

       That she had been erstwhile.

      Time wore to six. Her husband rose

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