Writer folk across the bay
Take the pains to see and say—
All their upward palms in air:
“Joaquin Miller’s cut his hair!”
Hasten, hasten, writer folk—
In the gutters rake and poke,
If by God’s exceeding grace
You may hit upon the place
Where the barber threw at length
Samson’s literary strength.
Find it, find it if you can;
Happy the successful man!
He has but to put one strand
In his beaver’s inner band
And his intellect will soar
As it never did before!
While an inch of it remains
He will noted be for brains,
And at last (’twill so befall)
Fit to cease to write at all.
Public-domain source text
Borrowed Brains
by Ambrose Bierce
Source record
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