(From Academic Graffiti, 1972.)

St. Thomas Aquinas
Always regarded wine as
A medicinal juice
That helped him to deduce.

Martin Buber
Never said “Thou” to a tuber:
Despite his creed,
He did not feel the need.

Desiderius Erasmus
Always avoided chiasmus,
But grew addicted as time wore on
To oxymoron.

No one could ever inveigle
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegal
Into offering the slightest apology
For his Phenomenology.

Henry James
Abhorred the word Dames,
And always wrote “Mommas“
With inverted commas.

When the young Kant
Was told to kiss his aunt,
He obeyed the Categorical Must,
But only just.

Karl Kraus
Always had some grouse
Among his bête noires
Were Viennese choirs.

When Karl Marx
Found the phrase “financial sharks,”
He sang a Te Deum
In the British Museum.

Nietzsche
Had the habit as a teacher
Of cracking his joints
To emphasise his points.

Whenever Xantippe
Wasn’t feeling too chippy,
She would bawl at Socrates:
“Why aren’t you Hippocrates?”