Thomas Hardy
Reminiscences of a Dancing Man
I
Who now remembers Almack's balls -
  Willis's sometime named -
In those two smooth-floored upper halls
  For faded ones so famed?
Where as we trod to trilling sound
The fancied phantoms stood around,
  Or joined us in the maze,
Of the powdered Dears from Georgian years,
Whose dust lay in sightless sealed-up biers,
  The fairest of former days.
II
Who now remembers gay Cremorne,
  And all its jaunty jills,
And those wild whirling figures born
  Of Jullien's grand quadrilles?
With hats on head and morning coats
There footed to his prancing notes
  Our partner-girls and we;
And the gas-jets winked, and the lustres clinked,
And the platform throbbed as with arms enlinked
  We moved to the minstrelsy.
III
Who now recalls those crowded rooms
  Of old yclept "The Argyle,"
Where to the deep Drum-polka's booms
  We hopped in standard style?
Whither have danced those damsels now!
Is Death the partner who doth moue
  Their wormy chaps and bare?
Do their spectres spin like sparks within
The smoky halls of the Prince of Sin
  To a thunderous Jullien air?
