WE relics of a bygone time insist that old things were sublime, that modern things are punk; but our old domes are full of bats, and we are talking through our hats, and all we say is bunk. The lovely dames come down the street, togged out in raiment slick and neat, and we look on and sigh; "The modern fashions," we declaim, "are nothing but a burning shame—they shock the purist's eye. They make the tired spectator ache; and how the womenfolk can make themselves a holy show, is something that we can't explain; oh, for the fashions safe and sane, of forty years ago!" We make such statements free and bold, but if you take an album old, and view the women there, with gowns that look like circus tents, and shawls that look like twenty cents, and nets upon their hair, you'll say, "Those girls were surely shrieks! The world was overrun with freaks when those tintypes were made; if any woman should appear in such a spread of rags this year, the cops would make a raid!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ETERNITY BLUES by HAYDEN CARRUTH DOMESDAY BOOK: BARRETT BAYS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS QUATORZAINS: 5. TO NIGHT by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES RELIGIO LAICI; OR, A LAYMAN'S FAITH by JOHN DRYDEN THE THREE KINGS by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW |