| |
| 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 | 5 |
| To be his tender minister, | |
| And call him aye her own. | |
| |
| Fair Jenny’s life had hardly been | |
| A life of modesty; | |
| At Casterbridge experience keen | 10 |
| Of many loves had she | |
| From scarcely sixteen years above: | |
| Among them sundry troopers of | |
| The King’s-Own Cavalry. | |
| |
| But each with charger, sword, and gun, | 15 |
| Had bluffed the Biscay wave; | |
| And Jenny prized her gentle one | |
| For all the love he gave. | |
| She vowed to be, if they were wed, | |
| His honest wife in heart and head | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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: | 30 |
| 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. | 35 |
| |
| She numbered near on sixty years, | |
| And passed as elderly, | |
| When, in the street, with flush of fears, | |
| On day discovered she, | |
| From shine of swords and thump of drum, | 40 |
| 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; | 45 |
| “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 Phoenix Inn | 50 |
| Was lit with tapers tall, | |
| For thirty of the trooper men | |
| Had vowed to give a ball | |
| As “Theirs” had done (fame handed down) | |
| When lying in the self-same town | 55 |
| 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 | 60 |
| 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 | |
| To hide her ringlets thin; | 65 |
| 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. | 70 |
| |
| 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, | 75 |
| 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; | 80 |
| “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!” | 85 |
| 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 | 90 |
| 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: | 95 |
| They cheered her as she soared and swooped | |
| (She’d learnt ere art in dancing drooped | |
| From hops to slothful swings). | |
| |
| The favorite Quick-step “Speed the Plough”— | |
| (Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)— | 100 |
| “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. | 105 |
| |
| 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, | 110 |
| Lest stroke of heel or chink 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; | 115 |
| 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, | 120 |
| 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 | 125 |
| 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 | 130 |
| 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; | 135 |
| She kissed him long, as when, just wooed. | |
| She chose his domicile. | |
| Death menaced now; yet less for life | |
| She wished than that she were the wife | |
| That she had been erstwhile. | 140 |
| |
| 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, | 145 |
| 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, | 150 |
| 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, | 155 |
| 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, | 160 |
| ’Twas saddest morn to see. | |
| |
