For I must inform you, O dear reader mine—
(I’m in my third verse, and indeed it is time)—
That our stylish Parisian was Fashion’s dear slave,
And to its sweet service her brain and time gave.
If she had been poet or artist or sage,
Or one of “the women,” so called, “of the age,”
With missions to Art, or the indigent poor,
Her crooked vertébra she might well endure.
For ’tis of no consequence, surely, I say,
If strong-minded women who flaunt in our day