[Douglas G. Brown]

My children, listen; you shall hear my praises
Of poets who have coined my fav’rite phrases.
When just a tyke, I sang of childish things;
Of sealing wax, and cabbages, and kings.

My mom, a common walker of the night
Would take me to saloons where she’d get tight;
While ancient mariners, exceeding wise,
Into my ear would whisper “Plagiarize!”.

At one and twenty, eagerly I paid
My homage to the chicks who got me laid
With lines, which I with wanton license, took
From Mr. Bartlett’s fat quotation book.

Now, I’m a college don who lines his purse
With gems from Oxford’s Book of English Verse;
And I’ll purloin my rhymes and stanzas clever,
Forever and forever and forever.