Mrs Felix Donnett was a lady of renown,
For ten years her husband was mayor of the town;
For ten years she queened it as our local social light;
And ‘everything she did, my dear,’ was very, very right.
But the mayoral pomp sat lightly on old Felix, sly but sprightly,
And about his civic earnestness shrewd townspeople had their ‘doots;’
But not of Mrs Donnett, with the bugles on her bonnet,
And her dolman, and her bustle, and elastic-sided boots.
Oh, a very proper lady with a very proper mind
Was she, like Queen Victoria, and exceedingly refined.
For the good Queen was her model, tho’ her ideals were confused;
Still, she and Queen Victoria were not easily amused,
For she lacked all sense of humor; but she had a nose for rumour
Spicy rumour; and a dragon ‘mid the other female ‘plutes’
Loomed Mrs Felix Donnett, with bugles on her bonnet,
Her dignity, her dolman, and her Aunt Jemima boots.
And woe betide the romping maid whose ways she counted lax.
One roguish glance, one titter, brought ‘the dragon’ on her tracks.
‘Her? Fast, mai deah? A minx, mai deah! If you but knew it all!
And Ai pity her poor mothah; but, of course, Ai could not call.’
Then the dingle-dangles trembled ‘mid the matrons there assembled
As head were tossed and lips compressed. ‘And men, of course, are brutes!’
Hissed Mrs Felix Donnett, with the bugles on her bonnet,
And her beadings, and her bustle, and her Aunt Jemima boots.
When I am moved to tolerance in this ‘unmoral age’
I take the family album out and turn each yellowed page;
And straightaway I am chastened, and my moral tone comes back,
As I browse ‘mid whiskered dandies and meek matrons garbed in black,
With their fol-de-rois and flounces. Then, from out the page there pounces
Mother Grundy; and my turpitude is blasted to the roots
By the glare of Mrs Donnett, and the bugles on her bonnet,
And her dolman, and her bustle, and her Aunt Jemima boots.
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