Lines written after listening on the wireless to the doleful dirge of a sad and inconsolable crooner.

I'd like to write a crooning song
   Of inconsolable regrets
To music of the sweet tom-tom
   With dulcet motor-horn effects.
But when I strive to weave the rhymes
   Harsh dissonances fill the room,
And unmatched mouthings end the lines.
   I wish that I knew how to croon.
I try, but inspiration stops,
And dull frustration thins my locks.

Oh, I want to write a crooning song,
   A blooming song
   Of love.
About a heart by passion torn
While evil stars rage in a storm
   Above.
(Gosh! That's a rhyme! I'm getting on.
I wonder where I got it from?
   If I could but go on like that
   I'd moon until my tonsils crack.)

I want to serenade my sweet
   In drear and doleful terms
And tell her how my life is bleak,
   How all my being burns
With unrequited love. I roam
   Tghe sad earth, all undone;
But when I raise my metric moan
   The rhymes will never come.
With wilful warring words I strive
Until my tortured brain cells writhe.

Oh, I want to write a moving song
   A soothing song,
   Tho' sad.
If only I could get it right
I even might grow lover-like
   And glad.
(A rhyme again! Yes, that's another!
I could be a luckless lover;
   But, alas, my song must flag
   Because I've no more rhymes in stock.)

"Den"
Herald, 11 May 1937, p6