I’ve been skipping around in The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse recently. Here’s a bit of practical advice from Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Earth, crowded, cries: “Too many men!”
My counsel is, kill nine in ten,
And bestow the shares of all
On the remnant decimal.
Most of the verse is subtler than that — if an encomium to the London sewer system, for example, can be called “subtle.” If you all are very good, I won’t quote any more of it.
Because Enlightened. Or something….