Girl With a Calico Dress
( J. H. Tenney)
A fig for your upper-ten girls,
With their velvets, and satins, and laces,
Their diamonds, and rubies, and pearls,
And their milliner figure and faces.
They may shine at a party or ball,
Emblazoned with half they possess,
But give me, in place of them all,
The girl with a calico dress.
CHO: The girl with a calico dress,
The girl with a calico dress,
Ere long you shall see
Whose wife she shall be,
The girl with the calico dress.
She's plump as a partridge, and fair
As the rose in the earliest blooming.
Her teeth will with iv'ry compare,
And her breath with the clover's perfume.
Her step is as free and as light
As the fawn when the hunters hard press.
And her eye is as soft as the light,
The girl with a calico dress.
She's cheerful, warm-hearted, and true:
Is kind to her father and mother.
Her hand ever ready to do
For sweet little sister and brother.
If you want a companion for life,
To comfort, enliven and bless,
She'll make the right sort of a wife,
The girl with a calico dress.
[From "Silver Carols," 1876.]
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Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!