Explore "In the Days of Crinoline" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A PLAIN tilt-bonnet on her head / She took the path across the leaze. / -Her spouse the vicar, gardening, said, / "Too dowdy that, for coquetries, / So I can hoe at ease."
But when she had passed into the heath, / And gained the wood beyond the flat, / She raised her skirts, and from beneath / Unpinned and drew as from a sheath / An ostrich-feathered hat.
And where the hat had hung she now / Concealed and pinned the dowdy hood, / And set the hat upon her brow, / And thus emerging from the wood / Tripped on in jaunty mood.
The sun was low and crimson-faced / As two came that way from the town, / And plunged into the wood untraced. / When separately therefrom they paced / The sun had quite gone down.
The hat and feather disappeared, / The dowdy hood again was donned, / And in the gloom the fair one neared / Her home and husband dour, who conned / Calmly his blue-eyed blonde.
"To-day," he said, "you have shown good sense, / A dress so modest and so meek / Should always deck your goings hence / Alone. " And as a recompense / He kissed her on the cheek.