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I came across the following two poems in my Wills, Trusts & Future Interest class while taking that course with Prof. William LaPiana at New York LawS chool. Ever since they have become dear to me.

Do You Rule Your Perpetuity?

Lives plus one-and-twenty years,
The learned fathers thought,
Should be the time for vesting
Or the gift would come to naught;

As many lives as are ascertained
Without undue delay,
For you light the candles all at once,
As Twiden used to say.

This was to keep the land well oiled
And free to come and go,
For a dead man's hand must idle be
And his mind works awful slow.

Anonymous student at Harvard Law School 1932
(Reproduced from W. Barton Leach, Langdell Lyrics of 1938 (1938))

Life looked rosy to A as he sat
By the crepe-draped casket of T.
Five hundred pounds for each child he begat
Would soon make him wealthy mused he.
So he married at once, and began procreating
At five hundred per, he supposed;
But you know and I know what hardly needs stating
That the class had already closed.
Mistakes of this sort are bound to arise
When a client takes actions like these
Without seeing his lawyer as soon as T dies,
And paying the usual fees.

-- Frank L. Dewey
(Reproduced from W. Barton Leach, Langdell Lyrics of 1938 (1938))

If you do not understand the above poems e-mail me or just ask any lawyer or law student....

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