I had a friend, upon a time, and a mighty friend was he.
His tongue went loop-de-loop-de-loop, and his blade went "Snicker! Snee!".
His fingers typed words of delight
Dancing like light gone mad,
But he disappeared quite late, one night,
And the story turned out bad.

It seems his door was knocked upon,
When most folks were in bed,
By two large gents in wrinkled suits
And large, and wrinkled, heads.
They said he had been singled out,
That someone Big was pissed,
Berated him as a useless lout,
And a goddamned plagiarist.

They listed tomes and poems and works
He'd borrowed for a while,
And touted up and frilled out
In inimitable style.
The said he'd never paid a dime
To those whose works he'd borrow,
And all of this was coming back,
To visit him with sorrow.

They told him he was going away,
Into the darkling deeps
Where bad men worry through the day,
And fret too much to sleep.
Where hard men break, and life is hard,
And you scramble for what you get,
And there's no such thing as e-mail,
OR a high-speed Internet.

My friend, he blanched, he paled, he flinched,
He knew that he'd done wrong,
He knew that even then his screen
Held a half-baked stolen song.
He realized then -- too late, too late --
He should have listened, way back when,
To his dear Mom; too late, too late,
He was heard from ne'er again.

And so I come to this Cafe,
To write, and to forget,
But something still recalls to me
This friend I think on yet.
I never learned if he had ever
re-crossed that chilling schism
That split him from the world he loved,
On account of plagiarism.

So good folks all, pray heed this call,
Think of this man, cast doon,
And make your good works all your own,
From your own hand, alone.
Steal not the works of other men,
Or lines of other poets;
For if you do, they'll come for you,
And everyone will know it.

Seamus Sanmerci O'Toole
Lilting the Right -- Poems from the Lexington Express
Dublin Upp Press, New York, 1937
All rights reserved except for Bearded Bruce