Poems (Forrest)/Silk stockings
SILK STOCKINGS
The Prince besought the silkworm on the bough, Where the ripe mulberries dripped honeyed blood,To spin a slender sheath, incurving now And now expanding in more generous mood,To clasp his lady's lovely ankles tightThat they glimmer in the moonless night,When fairies dance about the magic thorn,His fairy's limbs might twinkle like the morn!
And envious fairy gentlemen at Court Filched the floss-threads from thistle-tops, to makeHose for the partners whom their fancy sought, That maids might love them for the stockings' sake!And foot it just as featly in the danceAs proud Titania, whom a happier chanceDonated, for her feet as white as milk;The close caressing of the finer silk!
Let prudes complain and grim economy Wage war on these pure silken hose. We knowSilk stockings have a hint of witchery Suggesting rose-leaf textures hid below,Whispering of Folly in the merry dance,Of eyes demure, and Quaker gowns, and chanceOr sly intent conceding to the flesh,And hiding modest limbs in silken mesh!
The mistress of a king in days of old, Concealing ugly pasterns at the Court,Brought long gowns into fashion, we are told. Another, with trim ankles, made them short!And bales of silken stockings came from France—So Fashion changes at the sport of Chance.Till Prudery rose to lower every hem—Grey knitted worsted did as well for them!
Time lifts a curtain and we see their feet— Some in black shoes with flashing scarlet heels,Some in the flat, smooth satin, slim and neat, Only the feet and ankles Time reveals,And we try hard to judge, as to and froThey pass, the faces from the feet below!These surely to a Charlotte have belonged,And these Belinda, for no lovers thronged
After this flat and hideous support Of Cinderella's sisters! What a sight!Across the instep into ridges caught, And round the big-boned ankle far too tight!While tripping as a wood nymph's after theseArched insteps in glass slippers, if you please!That step quite haughtily, all shyness flown,Into a carriage from a pumpkin grown!
There is romance in silken stockings, set On velvet footstools before glowing fires,When shutters in the gales of winter fret, And fog shuts out the city and its spires,And you and she contrive a honeymoon,You reading from some tome a pixy rune,Conscious the while how the reflected flameCaresses each dear ankle in your name!
Till you believe you are that fairy prince (A mulberry splashed then upon your shield!)The pricking of your dagger made it wince, That crafty silkworm, whom it caused to yieldSilk for the spinning of Titania's hose,The while you begged a flower to stain them rose!That she might dance with you from dusk to morn,Belle of the ball about the magic thorn!