The Red Dress
I always saw, I always saidIf I were grown and free,I’d have a gown of reddest redAs fine as you could see,
To wear out walking, sleek and slow,Upon a Summer day,And there’d be one to see me so,And flip the world away.
And he would be a gallant one,With stars behind his eyes,And hair like metal in the sun,And lips too warm for lies.
I always saw us, gay and good,High honored in the town.Now I am grown to womanhood...I have the silly gown.
Words in this poem
- flip n.
- A mixture of beer, spirit, etc., stirred and heated by a hot iron. Flip dog, an iron used, when heated, to warm flip. [Cf. Prov. E. flip nimble, flippant, also, a slight blow. Cf. Flippant.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Red Dress is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sunset Gun: Poems (Boni & Liveright, 1928), English Wikisource; 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 Red Dress, in Sunset Gun (1928), text of English Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-sunset-gun/the-red-dress.html, id L27409.
Form and metre
The Red Dress is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 saidA · freeB · redA · seeB
- 2 ABAB slowA · dayB · soA · awayB
- 3 ABAB oneA · eyesB · sunA · liesB
- 4 ABAB goodA · townB · womanhoodA · gownB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I always saw, I always said | 8 | ·/···/·· |
| If I were grown and free, | 6 | ······ |
| I’d have a gown of reddest red | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| As fine as you could see, | 6 | ······ |
| To wear out walking, sleek and slow, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Upon a Summer day, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And there’d be one to see me so, | 8 | ········ |
| And flip the world away. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| And he would be a gallant one, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| With stars behind his eyes, | 6 | ······ |
| And hair like metal in the sun, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And lips too warm for lies. | 6 | ······ |
| I always saw us, gay and good, | 8 | ·/······ |
| High honored in the town. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Now I am grown to womanhood... | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I have the silly gown. | 6 | ···/˘· |
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.