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?