Today’s Sock of the Week comes courtesy of Ogden Nash and Sid, a reader of this blog, who kindly mentioned this verse in a comment on one of our previous socks of the week (in relation to clocks). You just can’t argue with lines like “hosiery, wonderful and terrible” but one also wonders how things might have been different had Nash just learned to wash his own woollen socks by hand, discovered today’s hardy superwash yarns, or perhaps been able to knit his own pair “full of colour, full of clocks”. . . .
The Shrinking Song
Woollen socks, woollen socks!
Full of colour, full of clocks!
Plain and fancy, yellow, blue,
From the counter beam at you.
O golden fleece, O magic flocks!
O irresistible woollen socks!
O happy haberdasher’s clerk
Amid that galaxy to work!
And now it festers, now it rankles
Not to have them round your ankles;
Now with your conscience do you spar;
They look expensive, and they are;
Now conscience whispers, You ought not to,
And human nature roars, You’ve got to!
Woollen socks, woollen socks!
First you buy them in a box.
You buy them several sizes large,
Fit for Hercules, or a barge.
You buy them thus because you think
These lovely woollen socks may shrink.
At home you don your socks with ease,
You find the heels contain your knees;
You realise with saddened heart
Their toes and yours are far apart.
You take them off and mutter Bosh,
You up and send them to the wash.
Too soon, too soon the socks return,
Too soon the horrid truth you learn;
Your woollen socks can not be worn
Unless a midget child is born;
And either sockless you must go,
Or buy a sock for every toe,
Woollen socks, woollen socks!
Infuriating paradox!
Hosiery wonderful and terrible,
Heaven to wear, and yet unwearable.
The man enmeshed in such a quandary
Can only hie him to the laundry,
And while his socks are hung to dry,
Wear them once as they’re shrinking by.
From Nash’s Selected Poems (1945)
KDD & Co 
Oh my goodness, what a riot!
Nash shall join my reading diet.
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Brava!
A neighbor lady gave me a hardcover copy of Ogden Nash poems when I was only 11 or so. Then I liked the silly ones so much but many, I see now, went right over my head. But never did I come up with a little couplet like this in response!
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I get way too excited about socks, I have a hierarchy, the best, the pretty good, the ok and the end of the week dregs. Fun times all round:)
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Love it especially as I look over my shoulder to see my woollen socks drying on the rack only one pair I have had trouble with but I think they will still fit .normally wash by hand but today tried the wool wash on the machine they do seem cleaner I must admit and still okay but it will be hand wash as much as possible for me.
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Tooo fun. And thanks to Sid AND Kate!
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I love Ogden Nash’s poetry so much. This one was new to me.
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Such a daymaker! Love it – and all the comments. Thank you.
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“At home you don your socks with ease,
You find the heels contain your knees;”
Oh, the number of garments I’ve knit that end up like this! Ostrich-like, the worse the fit looks, the less I want to try them on as I go and the worse it gets.
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Like commenter Kate, I hadn’t read Ogden Nash for… well, decades. My parents had four collections on their shelves and one teen summer I read them straight through, far too much. He did have a knack for a funny rhyme. He would have been of the stratum, and time, of urban American society that sent out their clothing for laundering, I think. I remember many of his rhymes but not this one. Just another example of how your blog enriches our lives, Kate,
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Do you know the poem Ode to my Socks by Pablo Neruda? In this case, his socks are hand-knitted and he loves them. It opens:
Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder’s hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
Socks described as ‘two cases knitted with threads of twilight”? Wonderful.
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You spoke my mind, Pauline! Neruda’s Ode is one of my favorites, both for the way he characterizes the socks and for the fact that he identifies the knitter.
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it is a wonderful poem (reproduced here in 2013) https://kddandco.com/2013/04/25/ode-to-my-socks/
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“The man enmeshed in such a quandary….”
Is it a gender thing?
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My favourite lines?
And now it festers, now it rankles
Not to have them round your ankles;
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Ah thank you Kate. I have really enjoyed this Bluestocking series 😊
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Now if I could find a poem about wool socks by e.e. cummings I would die happy.
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I think you should write one, in homage of e.e cummings, Wendy!
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Hmmmm . . .
anyone knit in a pretty how town
with up so floating many purls down
spring summer autumn winter
he knit his didn’t he purled his did.
I won’t quite my day job just yet.
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LOVE IT!
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hahahahaha!
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Oh magic! Read it out to my husband at breakfast and we both laughed and laughed.
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How wonderful!
And as you say, if he’d only learned to wash his own socks.
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Love it!
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“…conscience whispers, You ought not to,
And human nature roars, You’ve got to!”
Great expression of the feeling we’re all familiar with; thank you for the poem!
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Brilliant! “Hosiery wonderful and terrible “😂
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It’s sounding like nursery rhyme.
I shall read this aloud. 😊
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I haven’t read Ogden Nash for years! Thank you for sharing this. I also offer thanks for modern washing machines; I put all my 100% wool (non-superwash – I prefer untreated), hand knit socks and jumpers through the wool wash cycle with no shrinkages to date…. although I am aware that not all makes of machine are as gentle as ours. I do know someone who didn’t realise that it’s the agitation that shrinks the wool; she put a beautiful jumper, knit for her child, through a maximum spin cycle – twice: it came out doll sized!
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