The Ambitious Woman

She’s a woman with a mission;

‘Tis her heaven-born ambition

To reform the world’s condition

You will please to understand.

She’s a model of propriety,

A leader in society,

And has a great variety

Of remedies at hand.

Each a sovereign specific

With a title scientific,

For the cure of things morbific

That vex the people sore.

For the swift alleviation

Of the evils of the nation

Is her foreordained vocation

On this sublunary shore.

And while thus she’s up and coming,

Always hurrying and humming,

And occasionally slumming,

This reformer of renown:

Her neglected little Dicky,

Ragged, dirty, tough and tricky,

With his fingers soiled and sticky,

Is the terror of the town.

Tid-bits

from Verses of Virtue