Classic Poem

Superbly situated on a Lake
World-famed beyond the costliest Prima Donna
Who ever gargled a Puccini shake,—
The Grand Hotel (superimposed upon a
Villa evolved in vanished centuries
And denizened, long since, by real grandees)
While publishing on poster and prospectus
Its quite unique attractions which await us,
Refrains from offering to resurrect us
To an austere degree of social status.

Resolved to satirize Hotels-de-Luxe,
Shyly I sift the noodles from the crooks
Beneath whose bristly craniums a cigar
Juts and transmutes crude affluence to ash.
The Grand Hotel asks nothing but their cash;
The Grand Hotel contains a cock-tail bar
Where they can demonstrate by their behaviour
Hotel-de-Luxe aloofness from their Saviour.
(The English visitors have motored off
Into the mountains for a game of golf.)

The band concedes them Tosca with their tea.
Bored and expensive babble clogs the air.
Between two smooth white columns I can see
Gold and vermilion tulips. . . . Ambushed there
I criticize the ambulant outer-covers
That, costume-conscious, enter and withdraw
And in them all my satirist-self discovers
Prosperity that lives below the law. . . .
(You ask what law I mean. . . . Well, my impression
Is that these folk are poisoned by possession.)