Reminiscences of a Dancing Man

I

Who now remembers Almack's balls -
&nbsp Willis's sometime named -
In those two smooth-floored upper halls
&nbsp For faded ones so famed?
Where as we trod to trilling sound
The fancied phantoms stood around,
&nbsp Or joined us in the maze,
Of the powdered Dears from Georgian years,
Whose dust lay in sightless sealed-up biers,
&nbsp The fairest of former days.

II

Who now remembers gay Cremorne,
&nbsp And all its jaunty jills,
And those wild whirling figures born
&nbsp Of Jullien's grand quadrilles?
With hats on head and morning coats
There footed to his prancing notes
&nbsp Our partner-girls and we;
And the gas-jets winked, and the lustres clinked,
And the platform throbbed as with arms enlinked
&nbsp We moved to the minstrelsy.

III

Who now recalls those crowded rooms
&nbsp Of old yclept "The Argyle,"
Where to the deep Drum-polka's booms
&nbsp We hopped in standard style?
Whither have danced those damsels now!
Is Death the partner who doth moue
&nbsp Their wormy chaps and bare?
Do their spectres spin like sparks within
The smoky halls of the Prince of Sin
&nbsp To a thunderous Jullien air?