{"id":873,"date":"2011-02-28T01:25:49","date_gmt":"2011-02-28T01:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/?p=873"},"modified":"2017-07-12T02:27:34","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T02:27:34","slug":"the-dance-at-the-pheoenix-by-thomas-hardy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/the-dance-at-the-pheoenix-by-thomas-hardy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dance at the Pheoenix by Thomas Hardy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Dance at the Pheoenix<\/h1>\n

by Thomas Hardy<\/p>\n

To Jenny came a gentle youth
\nFrom inland leazes lone,
\nHis love was fresh as apple-blooth
\nBy Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.
\nAnd duly he entreated her
\nTo be his tender minister,
\nAnd call him aye her own.<\/p>\n

Fair Jenny’s life had hardly been
\nA life of modesty;
\nAt Casterbridge experience keen
\nOf many loves had she
\nFrom scarcely sixteen years above;
\nAmong them sundry troopers of
\nThe King’s-Own Cavalry.<\/p>\n

But each with charger, sword, and gun,
\nHad bluffed the Biscay wave;
\nAnd Jenny prized her gentle one
\nFor all the love he gave.
\nShe vowed to be, if they were wed,
\nHis honest wife in heart and head
\nFrom bride-ale hour to grave.<\/p>\n

Wedded they were. Her husband’s trust
\nIn Jenny knew no bound,
\nAnd Jenny kept her pure and just,
\nTill even malice found
\nNo sin or sign of ill to be
\nIn one who walked so decently
\nThe duteous helpmate’s round.<\/p>\n

Two sons were born, and bloomed to men,
\nAnd roamed, and were as not:
\nAlone was Jenny left again
\nAs ere her mind had sought
\nA solace in domestic joys,
\nAnd ere the vanished pair of boys
\nWere sent to sun her cot.<\/p>\n

She numbered near on sixty years,
\nAnd passed as elderly,
\nWhen, in the street, with flush of fears,
\nOne day discovered she,
\nFrom shine of swords and thump of drum.
\nHer early loves from war had come,
\nThe King’s-Own Cavalry.<\/p>\n

She turned aside, and bowed her head
\nAnigh Saint Peter’s door;
\n“Alas for chastened thoughts!” she said;
\n“I’m faded now, and hoar,
\nAnd yet those notes they thrill me through,
\nAnd those gay forms move me anew
\nAs in the years of yore!” . . .<\/p>\n

‘Twas Christmas, and the Phoenix Inn
\nWas lit with tapers tall,
\nFor thirty of the trooper men
\nHad vowed to give a ball
\nAs “Theirs” had done (’twas handed down)
\nWhen lying in the selfsame town
\nEre Buonaparte’s fall.<\/p>\n

That night the throbbing “Soldier’s Joy,”
\nThe measured tread and sway
\nOf “Fancy-Lad” and “Maiden Coy,”
\nReached Jenny as she lay
\nBeside her spouse; till springtide blood
\nSeemed scouring through her like a flood
\nThat whisked the years away.<\/p>\n

She rose, and rayed, and decked her head
\nWhere the bleached hairs ran thin;
\nUpon her cap two bows of red
\nShe fixed with hasty pin;
\nUnheard descending to the street,
\nShe trod the flags with tune-led feet,
\nAnd stood before the Inn.<\/p>\n

Save for the dancers’, not a sound
\nDisturbed the icy air;
\nNo watchman on his midnight round
\nOr traveller was there;
\nBut over All-Saints’, high and bright,
\nPulsed to the music Sirius white,
\nThe Wain by Bullstake Square.<\/p>\n

She knocked, but found her further stride
\nChecked by a sergeant tall:
\n“Gay Granny, whence come you?” he cried;
\n“This is a private ball.”
\n– “No one has more right here than me!
\nEre you were born, man,” answered she,
\n“I knew the regiment all!”<\/p>\n

“Take not the lady’s visit ill!”
\nUpspoke the steward free;
\n“We lack sufficient partners still,
\nSo, prithee let her be!”
\nThey seized and whirled her ‘mid the maze,
\nAnd Jenny felt as in the days
\nOf her immodesty.<\/p>\n

Hour chased each hour, and night advanced;
\nShe sped as shod with wings;
\nEach time and every time she danced –
\nReels, jigs, poussettes, and flings:
\nThey cheered her as she soared and swooped,
\n(She’d learnt ere art in dancing drooped
\nFrom hops to slothful swings).<\/p>\n

The favourite Quick-step “Speed the Plough” –
\n(Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)?
\n“The Triumph,” “Sylph,” “The Row-dow-dow,”
\nFamed “Major Malley’s Reel,”
\n“The Duke of York’s,” “The Fairy Dance,”
\n“The Bridge of Lodi” (brought from France),
\nShe beat out, toe and heel.<\/p>\n

The “Fall of Paris” clanged its close,
\nAnd Peter’s chime told four,
\nWhen Jenny, bosom-beating, rose
\nTo seek her silent door.
\nThey tiptoed in escorting her,
\nLest stroke of heel or clink of spur
\nShould break her goodman’s snore.<\/p>\n

The fire that late had burnt fell slack
\nWhen lone at last stood she;
\nHer nine-and-fifty years came back;
\nShe sank upon her knee
\nBeside the durn, and like a dart
\nA something arrowed through her heart
\nIn shoots of agony.<\/p>\n

Their footsteps died as she leant there,
\nLit by the morning star
\nHanging above the moorland, where
\nThe aged elm-rows are;
\nAnd, as o’ernight, from Pummery Ridge
\nTo Maembury Ring and Standfast Bridge
\nNo life stirred, near or far.<\/p>\n

Though inner mischief worked amain,
\nShe reached her husband’s side;
\nWhere, toil-weary, as he had lain
\nBeneath the patchwork pied
\nWhen yestereve she’d forthward crept,
\nAnd as unwitting, still he slept
\nWho did in her confide.<\/p>\n

A tear sprang as she turned and viewed
\nHis features free from guile;
\nShe kissed him long, as when, just wooed,
\nShe chose his domicile.
\nShe felt she could have given her life
\nTo be the single-hearted wife
\nThat she had been erstwhile.<\/p>\n

Time wore to six. Her husband rose
\nAnd struck the steel and stone;
\nHe glanced at Jenny, whose repose
\nSeemed deeper than his own.
\nWith dumb dismay, on closer sight,
\nHe gathered sense that in the night,
\nOr morn, her soul had flown.<\/p>\n

When told that some too mighty strain
\nFor one so many-yeared
\nHad burst her bosom’s master-vein,
\nHis doubts remained unstirred.
\nHis Jenny had not left his side
\nBetwixt the eve and morning-tide:
\nThe King’s said not a word.<\/p>\n

Well! times are not as times were then,
\nNor fair ones half so free;
\nAnd truly they were martial men,
\nThe King’s-Own Cavalry.
\nAnd when they went from Casterbridge
\nAnd vanished over Mellstock Ridge,
\n‘Twas saddest morn to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The Dance at the Pheoenix by Thomas Hardy 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 call him aye her own. Fair Jenny’s life had hardly been A life of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[408],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature-poems"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t