I Yield To My Learned Brother
or
Is There a Candlestick Maker
in the House?
by Ogden Nash
The doctor gets you when you're born,
The preacher, when you marry,
And the lawyer lurks with costly clerks
If too much on you carry.
Professional men, they have no cares;
Whatever happens, they get theirs.
You can't say When
To professional men,
For it's always When to they;
They go out and golf
With the big bad wolf
In the most familiar way.
Hard times for them contain no terrors;
Their income springs from human errors.
The noblest lord is ushered in
By the practicing physician,
And the humblest lout is ushered out
By a certified mortician.
And in between, they find their foyers
Alive with summonses from lawyers.
Oh, would my parents long ago
Had memorized this motto!
For then might I, their offspring, buy
A Rolls or an Isotto.
But now I fear I never can,
For I am no professional man.
You can't say When
To professional men,
For it's always When to they;
They were doing fine
In '29,
And they're doing fine today.
Imagine trying to make your living as a poet in 1930s America,
right after the Great Depression. This is exactly what
Ogden Nash did and he became quite successful.
