Sunday Dresses
WHERE are they gone, those Sunday dresses
That hung augustly in lavendered presses
(Until they sailed superbly to
Church, and graced the family pew),
Stiff with self-respect and pride,
Conscious of all their bones inside,
So neatly overcast by hand,
No three-piece suit would understand
Those devious ways of tucks and gusset,
Lining, interlining nice large pocket
(And one for my watch — please don’t forget it),
Those mazy miles of braided trimming
And bastions with buttons brimming.
Though little Miss Finch in the village here
Strives to make me year by year
Something that can be called a dress,
These flimsy gibbets she must confess
(With a deprecatory cough)
Are not intended to ‘set one off.’
For Fanny Finch lives in that day
When trains and bustles held their sway,
When a dogcart was Mount Everest
And every lady took her rest
In those long drowsy afternoons
From tyrant hooks and collarbones —
How long ago it seems!
When jasmine grew round the saddler’s door
In that enchanting street of dreams.
Yet I can clearly hear a snore
(Discreetly muffled by the Times)
From someone sitting bolt upright
On a woolwork chair, in dappled light,
And smell the peeping tasseled limes;
And joyfully I can write and say
Sunday dresses still pass my way, for
Great-Aunt Susan has come to stay.
That hung augustly in lavendered presses
(Until they sailed superbly to
Church, and graced the family pew),
Stiff with self-respect and pride,
Conscious of all their bones inside,
So neatly overcast by hand,
No three-piece suit would understand
Those devious ways of tucks and gusset,
Lining, interlining nice large pocket
(And one for my watch — please don’t forget it),
Those mazy miles of braided trimming
And bastions with buttons brimming.
Though little Miss Finch in the village here
Strives to make me year by year
Something that can be called a dress,
These flimsy gibbets she must confess
(With a deprecatory cough)
Are not intended to ‘set one off.’
For Fanny Finch lives in that day
When trains and bustles held their sway,
When a dogcart was Mount Everest
And every lady took her rest
In those long drowsy afternoons
From tyrant hooks and collarbones —
How long ago it seems!
When jasmine grew round the saddler’s door
In that enchanting street of dreams.
Yet I can clearly hear a snore
(Discreetly muffled by the Times)
From someone sitting bolt upright
On a woolwork chair, in dappled light,
And smell the peeping tasseled limes;
And joyfully I can write and say
Sunday dresses still pass my way, for
Great-Aunt Susan has come to stay.