Hardly a literate man is now alive

Of lads who read the books, I rise to say,

Of nineteen twenty-three and -four and -five,

Or else they're Communists, or moved away.

In those days Cabell had his name and strength;

We thought Poictesme was not too far to seek.

In those days Stuart Sherman wrote at length

To a Lady in the Country every week.

When "So Big" sketched the mid-American scene,

At once the widest bookstore aisles were jammed.

The genus boob was itemized and damned

When Mencken, with a brand new magazine,

Shammed at whatever needed to be slammed,

The language crimson but the covers green.

Those were the days (how soon the young are old)

When Havelock Ellis danced the Dance of Life,

When Michael Arlen's "Green Hat" sold and sold,

And Forsyte fans picked up an ivory knife

To cut "White Monkey's" pages. Miss Millay

Wove ballads on a harp, for she was young.

And so were we, and so for a while were they

Whose books and names were quick on every tongue:

Mencken and Lardner Anderson, and Dell,

Van Vechten Dreiser, Sandburg. Those were years

When writers wrote, and readers read as well

As either could. But none of us were seers

In nineteen twenty-five and -three and -four.

We never thought we'd think of that as yore.