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