the poem:
The Satin Dress by Dorothy Parker
Needle, needle, dip and dart,
Thrusting up and down,
Where’s the man could ease a heart
Like a satin gown?
See the stitches curve and crawl
Round the cunning seams—
Patterns thin and sweet and small
As a lady’s dreams.
Wantons go in bright brocade;
Brides in organdie;
Gingham’s for the plighted maid;
Satin’s for the free!
Wool’s to line a miser’s chest;
Crepe’s to calm the old;
Velvet hides an empty breast;
Satin’s for the bold!
Lawn is for a bishop’s yoke;
Linen’s for a nun;
Satin is for wiser folk—
Would the dress were done!
Satin glows in candlelight—
Satin’s for the proud!
They will say who watch at night,
“What a fine shroud!”
Observations: A bit of a shock ending there, but we have chosen to go with the beauty of our imaginings of the poem, rather than finding a picture of a dead body. Dorothy Parker wrote an awful lot, and if you read too much at one time you can get a bit tired of her style, and spot the tricks very easily, but in small doses she is great: funny and observant and realistic. She does not seem to have had a very happy life, and drinking was a big problem. She rather overdoes her protests that she is having a wonderful time with feckless and unfaithful men and that it is all SUCH fun, and she is glad she is not one of those clinging women: "Better to see the dawn come up/ along of a trifling one/ than set a steady man’s cloth and cup/ And pray the day be done." As if they were the only two options.
Links up with: Parker is quoted in this entry. Mr Rochester wanted Jane Eyre to wear brightly-coloured satin, but Miss Priss insisted on grey and black. This lady remembers her satin dress.
The picture is, again, from George Eastman House.
The Satin Dress by Dorothy Parker
Poem from the collection Enough Rope, published 1926
Needle, needle, dip and dart,
Thrusting up and down,
Where’s the man could ease a heart
Like a satin gown?
See the stitches curve and crawl
Round the cunning seams—
Patterns thin and sweet and small
As a lady’s dreams.
Wantons go in bright brocade;
Brides in organdie;
Gingham’s for the plighted maid;
Satin’s for the free!
Wool’s to line a miser’s chest;
Crepe’s to calm the old;
Velvet hides an empty breast;
Satin’s for the bold!
Lawn is for a bishop’s yoke;
Linen’s for a nun;
Satin is for wiser folk—
Would the dress were done!
Satin glows in candlelight—
Satin’s for the proud!
They will say who watch at night,
“What a fine shroud!”
Observations: A bit of a shock ending there, but we have chosen to go with the beauty of our imaginings of the poem, rather than finding a picture of a dead body. Dorothy Parker wrote an awful lot, and if you read too much at one time you can get a bit tired of her style, and spot the tricks very easily, but in small doses she is great: funny and observant and realistic. She does not seem to have had a very happy life, and drinking was a big problem. She rather overdoes her protests that she is having a wonderful time with feckless and unfaithful men and that it is all SUCH fun, and she is glad she is not one of those clinging women: "Better to see the dawn come up/ along of a trifling one/ than set a steady man’s cloth and cup/ And pray the day be done." As if they were the only two options.
Links up with: Parker is quoted in this entry. Mr Rochester wanted Jane Eyre to wear brightly-coloured satin, but Miss Priss insisted on grey and black. This lady remembers her satin dress.
The picture is, again, from George Eastman House.
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