Explore "The Well-Dressed Children" by Robert Graves on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Here's flowery taffeta for Mary's new gown:
Here's black velvet, all the rage, for Dick's birthday coat.
Pearly buttons for you, Mary, all the way down, / Lace ruffles, Dick, for you; you'll be a man of note.
Mary, here I've bought you a green gingham shade / And a silk purse brocaded with roses gold and blue, / You'll learn to hold them proudly like colours on parade. / No banker's wife in all the town half so grand as you.
I've bought for young Diccon a long walking-stick, / Yellow gloves, well tanned, at Woodstock village made. / I'll teach you to flourish 'em and show your name is DICK, / Strutting by your sister's side with the same parade.
On Sunday to church you go, each with a book of prayer: / Then up the street and down the aisles, everywhere you'll see / Of all the honours paid around, how small is Virtue's share. / How large the share of Vulgar Pride in peacock finery.