O Alfred, of the withered bays and harp of nice clean celluloid, why do you spend the passing days in singing of an aching void? Why sing a roundelay that means no more than Choctaw to a Turk? Is it because the magazines will pay you kopecks for your work? O Alfred, of the bloodless rhyme, that savors more of milk than fire, bethink you of the olden time when poets really smote the lyre, producing strains of noble swell, that touched and stirred the hearts of all, and made the soulful people yell, and bat their heads against the wall! We listen to the songs you croon among the fogs across the sea; your poor old harp is out of tune, its strings were made in Germany. Far better poets roam the hills of this fair land, and feed on hope and write wild songs of liver pills, or Jimson's Non-Explosive Soap.