Florence Nightingale - The Lady with the Lamp

Florence Nightingale poem for kids, by Paul Perro.

Long ago there was a soldier
Fighting in a war.
His name was Bert, and he got hurt,
His leg was very sore.

They took him to a hospital
And put him in a bed.
They hoped he would get better
But he got worse instead.

The hospital was filthy
His bandages were dirty.
The doctors and nurses were hopeless,
It wasn’t nice for Bertie.

Onto the bed jumped some horrible rats
They laughed at Bert and said
“We’re going to give you a nasty disease
And soon you will be dead.”

Poor old Bert was frightened.
The rats were right, he feared.
He thought that he was going to die
But then, a light appeared.

It was a lady with a lamp
Her name was Florence Nightingale.
She took one look at the rats,
And picked them up, by the tail.

“No rats allowed in here,” she said
“On this I’m quite determined.
From now on things will be different
This place will be clean, and de-vermined."

The rats saw that she meant business
And they ran away in fear.
Then Florence smiled and Bertie said,
“I’m really glad you’re here.”

She gave him a nice clean bandage
And some medicine for the pain.
It was not long before
Bertie was better again.

Florence was the best nurse
That there had ever been.
But she did so much more
Than keep one hospital clean.

She wrote books about nursing
And opened up a school.
She made being a nurse
Seem really cool!

Nowadays we can thank
The lady with the lamp
That hospitals are clean and fresh
Instead of dirty and damp.

Nowadays cleanliness
Seems like common sense
But it would have all been different
Were it not for Florence.



Florence came from a wealthy family and was unusually well educated. She felt called by God to become a nurse , even though at the time it was not considered a suitable profession for a lady. It was her work in a hospital in Turkey during the Crimean War (1854-56) that made her reputation, but it was the way that she made nursing into a respectable profession that was her most important achievement.

Here is one final verse of the poem, but this one is probably not for the children:

I know what you might be thinking -
“Hospitals aren't so clean today.”
But you can’t blame Florence Nightingale
For the spread of MRSA.