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The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti

A variorum edition: Edited, with textual notes and introductions, by R. W. Crump

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[Some ladies dress in muslin full and white]

Some ladies dress in muslin full and white,
Some gentlemen in cloth succinct and black;
Some patronise a dog-cart, some a hack,
Some think a painted clarence only right.
Youth is not always such a pleasing sight,
Witness a man with tassels on his back;
Or woman in a great-coat like a sack
Towering above her sex with horrid height.

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If all the world were water fit to drown
There are some whom you would not teach to swim,
Rather enjoying if you saw them sink;
Certain old ladies dressed in girlish pink,
With roses and geraniums on their gown:—
Go to the Bason, poke them o'er the rim.—