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Title: Grandma's Bombazine
Author: Eugene Field [
More Titles by Field]
IT'S everywhere that women fair invite and please my eye,
And that on dress I lay much stress I can't and sha'n't deny:
The English dame who's all aflame with divers colors bright,
The Teuton belle, the ma'moiselle,--all give me keen delight;
And yet I'll say, go where I may, I never yet have seen
A dress that's quite as grand a sight as was that bombazine.
Now, you must know 'twas years ago this quaint but noble gown
Flashed in one day, the usual way, upon our solemn town.
'Twas Fisk who sold for sordid gold that gravely scrumptious thing,--
Jim Fisk, the man who drove a span that would have joyed a king,--
And grandma's eye fell with a sigh upon that sombre sheen,
And grandpa's purse looked much the worse for grandma's bombazine.
Though ten years old, I never told the neighbors of the gown;
For grandma said, "This secret, Ned, must not be breathed in town."
The sitting-room for days of gloom was in a dreadful mess
When that quaint dame, Miss Kelsey, came to make the wondrous dress:
To fit and baste and stitch a waist, with whale-bones in between,
Is precious slow, as all folks know who've made a bombazine.
With fortitude dear grandma stood the trial to the end
(The nerve we find in womankind I cannot comprehend!);
And when 'twas done resolved that none should guess at the surprise,
Within the press she hid that dress, secure from prying eyes;
For grandma knew a thing or two,--by which remark I mean
That Sundays were the days for her to wear that bombazine.
I need not state she got there late; and, sailing up the aisle
With regal grace, on grandma's face reposed a conscious smile.
It fitted so, above, below, and hung so well all round,
That there was not one faulty spot a critic could have found.
How proud I was of her, because she looked so like a queen!
And that was why, perhaps, that I admired the bombazine.
But there were those, as you'd suppose, who scorned that perfect
gown;
For ugly-grained old cats obtained in that New England town:
The Widow White spat out her spite in one: "It doesn't fit!"
The Packard girls (they wore false curls) all giggled like to split;
Sophronia Wade, the sour old maid, she turned a bilious green,
When she descried that joy and pride, my grandma's bombazine.
But grandma knew, and I did, too, that gown was wondrous fine,--
The envious sneers and jaundiced jeers were a conclusive sign.
Why, grandpa said it went ahead of all the girls in town,
And, saying this, he snatched a kiss that like to burst that gown;
But, blushing red, my grandma said, "Oh, isn't grandpa mean!"
Yet evermore my grandma wore his favorite bombazine.
And when she died that sombre pride passed down to heedless heirs,--
Alas, the day 't was hung away beneath the kitchen stairs!
Thence in due time, with dust and grime, came foes on foot and wing,
And made their nests and sped their guests in that once beauteous thing.
'Tis so, forsooth! Time's envious tooth corrodes each human scene;
And so, at last, to ruin passed my grandma's bombazine.
Yet to this day, I'm proud to say, it plays a grateful part,--
The thoughts it brings are of such things as touch and warm my heart.
This gown, my dear, you show me here I'll own is passing fair,
Though I'll confess it's no such dress as grandma used to wear.
Yet wear it, do; perchance when you and I are off the scene,
Our boy shall sing this comely thing as I the bombazine.
[The end]
Eugene Field's poem: Grandma's Bombazine
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