Borrowd Plumes

A Preface and a Piracy     Prologue     Of borrowd plumes I take the sin,     My extracts will apply     To some few silly songs which in     These pages scatterd lie.     The words are Edgar Allan Poes,     As any man may see,     But what a Poet wrote in prose,     Shall make blank verse for me.     These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view     to their redemption from the many improvements to which     they have been subjected while going at random the rounds of the Press.     I am naturally anxious that what I have written should circulate     as I wrote it, if it circulate at all. * * * * * * In defence     of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent upon me to say that I think     nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or very creditable     to myself.     E. A. P.     (See Preface to Poes Poetical Works.)     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 youll say for my verse,     Ive written of old something badly,     But written anew something worse.