About Miss Priss

She was born in Bayfield, as you would suspect,
The only child of Mister Priss and
His lovely wife Anne, who died by her own hand:
Suicide at thirty-two. It is correct
That Miss Priss's early portraits show a brow
Heightened diabolically, as from much thought.
But the rumors that Miss Priss is somehow
Inhuman most certainly are not.

Her predilection for preciosity
Is of course very well-known. What of it?
She thinks grammar crucial, hate it or love it.
There is a kind of animosity
About her when she lectures. She's vicious.
To her self-development is the whole
Aim of life. Governments make her suspicious.
Politically, thus, freedom is the only goal.

Her frequent absences remain obscure. She holds
Her cards very closely against the vest.
Solitary, somewhat sad, she is at best
Cut from two entirely different molds.
An atheist who prays? Actually, no. Not quite.
She preaches reason and the philomathic.
She believes in knowledge that brought the world light.
Anent these things, she's almost psychopathic.

Apart from this, there is little more
That can be said of her that's not been said
Many times before. Still, whatever the milk-fed
Commentators have come to report -- Miss Priss: whore,
Co-conspirator, burnout, pig, poet
Truckdriver, autodidact always grinning
That damned hooked grin, and who loves to show it --
She is, on balance, more sinned against than sinning.