The Satin Dress
Needle, needle, dip and dart,Thrusting up and down,Where's the man could ease a heartLike a satin gown?
See the stitches curve and crawlRound the cunning seams--Patterns thin and sweet and smallAs a lady's dreams.
Wantons go in bright brocades;Brides in organdie;Gingham's for the plighted maid;Satin's for the free!
Wool's to line a miser's chest;Crape's to calm the old;Velvet hides an empty breast;Satin's for the bold!
Lawn is for a bishop's yoke;Linen's for a nun;Satin is for wiser folk--Would the dress were done!
Satin glows in candle-light--Satin's for the proud!They will say who watch at night,"What a fine shroud!"
Words in this poem
- crawl v. i.
- To move slowly by drawing the body along the ground, as a worm; to move slowly on hands and kness; to creep. [Dan. kravle, or Icel. krafla, to paw, scrabble with the hands; akin to Sw. kr to crawl; cf. LG. krabbeln, D. krabbelen to scratch.]
- organdie n.
- A kind of transparent light muslin. [F. organdi.]
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Satin Dress is in the public domain. This text is taken from Enough Rope: Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #68353; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dorothy Parker, The Satin Dress, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/the-satin-dress.html, id L27328.
Form and metre
The Satin Dress is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 5 of its 6 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB dartA · downB · heartA · gownB
- 2 ABAB crawlA · seamsB · smallA · dreamsB
- 4 ABAB chestA · oldB · breastA · boldB
- 5 ABAB yokeA · nunB · folkA · doneB
- 6 ABAB lightA · proudB · nightA · shroudB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Needle, needle, dip and dart, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Thrusting up and down, | 5 | /˘··· |
| Where's the man could ease a heart | 7 | ······· |
| Like a satin gown? | 5 | ··/˘· |
| See the stitches curve and crawl | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Round the cunning seams-- | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Patterns thin and sweet and small | 7 | /˘····· |
| As a lady's dreams. | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Wantons go in bright brocades; | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| Brides in organdie; | 5 | ····· |
| Gingham's for the plighted maid; | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Satin's for the free! | 5 | /˘··· |
| Wool's to line a miser's chest; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Crape's to calm the old; | 5 | ····· |
| Velvet hides an empty breast; | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Satin's for the bold! | 5 | /˘··· |
| Lawn is for a bishop's yoke; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Linen's for a nun; | 5 | /˘··· |
| Satin is for wiser folk-- | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Would the dress were done! | 5 | ····· |
| Satin glows in candle-light-- | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Satin's for the proud! | 5 | /˘··· |
| They will say who watch at night, | 7 | ······· |
| "What a fine shroud!" | 4 | ···· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.