Classic Poem

Oh master Americans,
so supreme over this and all ages
in lawfully bridging the chasm
between any two sums with the process,
indigenous and doubly divine,
of addition, subtraction, multiplication; division:
I ask you, how is it
that the tiddle-diddle-doo
breathed into yonder flute
by the trained carbon-dioxide
of a wandering tatterdemalion —
how is it that,
whereas you sanction the barter
of hens for gold, pigs for gold, ducks for gold,
by tossing your clinkety-clink
to the merest squawk-squawk, oint-oint, quack-quack —
that this tiddle-diddle-doo
while it doesn't say in words
audible to the ear or legible to the eye,
" Will you drop me a penny for beauty?" —
how is it, I say,
that that huckster of the flute,
who needs but an addition of oxygen
equal to a subtraction of carbon-dioxide,
lest he fall and beauty fall with him,
is thin as a worm and white as a shell?
Have you no process for pleasure
or is pleasure unlawful among you?