Lines on Pictures

To accompany a print of the drawing of Saint Rose of Lima

There was a young lady of Lima
Whose life was as fast as a steamer.
          She played dirty tricks
          With a large crucifix
Till the spunk trickled right down her femur.

 

¶ 1896. In a letter to Leonard Smithers, written from Boscombe on 31st December 1896, Beardsley, no doubt facetiously, informed his publisher that “a lady has just written to ask me if I would be kind enough to send her a copy of verses upon any of my pictures. Whereupon I wired the following chaste thing…”