Find me a woman bare as boiled egg,
Who’d think a brush and comb came from the divvle,
Who owns no snotrag to entrap her snivel,
Or towel or dishcloth hanging from a peg.
Who has no shoe on foot or hose on leg
Nor any of the Amenities of Civil-
Ised Life, to use the advertiser’s drivel.
No jakes to thrutch in and no pot to deg.

Who will sup water but not sit in it,
Nor on a chair, nor underneath a roof,
Who’ll never see the muckman do his duty.
Picture this little lady decked in shit
From hair to heel, then try to give me proof
That Mother Eve, Christ help us, was a beauty

------

No, it's not mine. It's an English translation of the work of a Roman (like, from Rome) poet Giuseppe Belli. He wrote thousands (literally) of these sarcastic, generally irreverent (but, supposedly, "never impious") and critical of the Catholic Church and its doctorines sonnets following the books of the bible and satirising the Roman street life and clergy. This didn't seem to stop him working as a censor for the Church, however, and restricting the world of Shakespeare from circulation.

Anyhow, I feel this guy deserves more fame. He wrote his sonnets in a 19th Century Roman street dialect, which makes them extremely difficult to translate, and perhaps explains the lack of exposure. I came across a selection of his work in the back of an Anthony Burgess book Abba Abba (from which I re-typed the sonnet above), and there are at least a few translated sonnets available on the internets, so if you're interested in that kind of thing - do check it out.