At a five-o’clock tea, the speaker feels trapped among buttered toast, marmalade, feathered hats, and the brittle chatter of women who smile while gossiping about absent friends. Everything offends; the atmosphere is sweet but stale. Then the speaker catches the eye of a younger companion addressed as “Child,” who seems to share the same private understanding without needing to say so. The two slip out unnoticed into a slow autumn rain, and the poem’s mood lifts into relief and giddy delight: they laugh, breathe deep, laugh again, glad to escape the “candled gloom.” A wet leaf falls on the speaker’s head while leaning down for a kiss, and the child answers with the affectionate, playful line, “You’re such a dear old thing!” By the end, suffocating social ritual has been traded for a fresher, wordless closeness.
Five O'clock — Summary
Let us go far away from buttered toast, And tea, and marmalade, and all of it. The feathered jostling of their hats, the wit Unhumorous — I can not bear this host
Of warm, sweet women! Everything offends. The murmurous movement of each gleaming bead, Sly laughter on soft lips that do not feed So much on tea as on their absent friends.
I knew you understood because your eyes Were beckoning across the crowd to me. Oh Child, who have so strangely learned to be Unconsciously, mysteriously wise!
We went away, unnoticed, from the room Into the drip of slow, autumnal rain. And laughed, and drew deep breath, and laughed again, We were so glad to leave that candled gloom.
Through the wet dusk the leaves came fluttering — I felt one falling softly on my head As I leaned down to kiss you and you said Adorably, " You're such a dear old thing ! "