Extinction of less-improved forms

Pants humor is an essential part of Pharyngula, as a casual search for pants would show:

• And my kids are laughing at me for dancing around with my pants on fire.
  
• Isn't that the kind of thing that would make a good ol' redmeat Republican pee his pants?
  
• Again, when you are imbedded in a foam rubber appliance you do not have any way to pull your pants up.
  
• while still trying to rid himself of the pubic infestation, "I have ants in my pants!"
  
• At least I didn't propose that the uniform of the Resistance should be pants 4 sizes too big with exposed underwear.
  

With these quotes in mind, I present a slightly panted paraphrase of a famous quote.

Contemplate a tangled bank,
Clothed by ranks of diverse plants;
Songbirds perch while insects fly;
Worms are sliding (in its pants).

Watch the bank, observe and think:
Each distinct constructed form
Diff'ring from each other so,
Flock and row and clew and swarm,

Each dependent, one on one,
Intricate, yet under laws
All these forms have been produced
(Even worms loose in its drawers).

Wisdom framed in humor thrives,
Morphs, survives, in rhyme resolved;
These words too? Dare I propose,
"Look here Charles, your prose evolved"?

But, this mutant, mildly droll,
Lonely soul in culture's dance
Cannot hope to spread or breed--
Fitness? Nah, this screed is pants.


(Don't forget to read Tangled Bank #23)