OCR Text |
Show A FASHIONABLE GIRL'S SOLILOQUY. They tell me my face is fair, That my form is full of grace, And yet I am doing my best - or worst - To spell this form and face. Ah, well do our concerns say That woman is woefully weak, For we hate the chains that gall us so, And refuse an escape to seek. I could scream with the pain, and I do, When Parker say width so pinches; But Fashion décor says it must be At the need to be sixty inches. And it's lace! lace! lace! Til I gasp for each breath I take, And often long in the torture keen, That the stay-lace would but break. Tis the same from top to toe - My bones cry from pain but My jersey, clad me latest fad, Clara close smells like a skin. And it's tug! tug! tug! When that garment they try to doff: Way the caricature can't be too strong That cries to "take it off." My hands are forced into gloves A size at least, too small; My dress so bunches around the knees, That I forever, stop to faint ?? in?? a nowhere free, my arms By tight sleeves ???/////? My neck is mauled by a golden band, And by stiff, starch'd linen nipped. But why do I dwell on this? Worse secrets I have to tell, If secrets you can consider the tricks Which the world knows all too well; The ???//////??? and the purse! The hero's foot and ???///??? The washes, the ???///???, the consequential! Which Fashion's votaries try. False, false! false! And the list is one to shame all But it is not the fashion not to blush When those harlots allege name, There's our hair, well, that I ???///??? Turn green posthumously, And the ???///??? Whose had, he lose chance to possess. And our faces' oh who shall tell The labor which they involve? The washes ???/// ////??? The unguents that we discover Paint, and powder and patch, Patch and powder and paint Till the heart is sick and the fingers incl. And one a very split faint. Paint! Paint! Paint! Till the rinse will stand the light, And paint, paint, paint In a style that is me for night; While the ???//////??? And lips with colors ???///??? And one ???///??? brow and bust In enamel are duly cased. Oh! What I would give to be The true ???////??? of yore, To untie my corset strings, And to powder and paint no more! Oh, but for one short day, To feel how I used to feel, Ere cruel Fashion bound me tight In her ban is of bone and steel! Oh men with sisters dear! Oh, men with sweethearts and wives! Tis to ???///??? and let you remember this, We are wearing out our lives Remember, and interfere, Tis ???////??? on all, And against our tyrants merciless Lead us on a new crusade. - London Truth. |