A Preface and a Piracy.
–
Prologue.

Of borrow’d plumes I take the sin,
My extracts will apply
To some few silly songs which in
These pages scatter’d lie.

The words are Edgar Allan Poe’s,
As any man may see,
But what a Poe-t wrote in prose,
Shall make blank verse for me.

Epilogue

And now that my theft stands detected,
The first of my extracts may call
To some of the rhymes here collected
Your notice, the second to all.

Ah! friend, you may shake your head sadly,
Yet this much you’ll say for my verse,
I’ve written of old something badly,
But written anew something worse.
-Adam Lindsay Gordon