The poem
I haven't worn my evening dress For nearly twenty years; Oh I'm unsocial, I confess, A hermit, it appears. So much moth-balled it's but away, And though wee wifie wails, Never unto my dimmest day I'll don my tails.
How slim and trim I looked in them, Though I was sixty old; And now their sleekness I condemn To lie in rigid fold. I have a portrait of myself Proud-printed in the Press, In garb now doomed to wardrobe shelf,-- My evening dress.
So let this be my last request, That when I come to die, In tails I may be deftly drest, With white waistcoat and tie. No, not for me a vulgar shroud My carcass to caress;-- Oh let me do my coffin proud In evening dress!