ALL ALE!

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 88, 15 April 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

ALL ALE!

Tlio thump of bung starters 011 countless kegs drummed the long lost beverage back to the American scene on Friday, and lawful 3.2 beer gushed in on territory populated by 70,000,000 people as 19 States and the district of Columbia lifted the ban more than 13 years old. How rcry strange it is to me (And possibly to you) That cocoa, coffee, even tea Inspire no lyric new. Does Masefield ever twang his lyre, Are poems ever made By Yeats or G. K. Chesterton About pink lemonade? Sad, sad it seems, 'tis rather queer That seventy million Yanks Should hail the ale, the flowing beer, In hogsheads, tuns, and tanks — The froth, the spume, the collared tops With song and brazen band. Merely because of malt and hops, When th(3re"s the Kio Grande! The Mississippi glumly streams Untasted to the sea; Missouri, too, no longer gleams (Except, perhaps, in tea); The Colorado's fluent flow Slakes not the thirsty guy; 01), what a change—a dreadful blow — Since all the land was dry! White House, where milk all nice and hot The diplomats sustained, Will now, alas, produce a " spot" When nobs are entertained; Congress, so lately droughty, dry, No longer drinks—alack! The pure, sweet water flowing by In glorious Potomac. Wall Street no longer waters Btock, But beer (point three per cent) Will wet transactions—dreadful shock To a teetotal gent. When Scarface A 1 comes out of gaol, I fear he'll think it fun To have his ale displayed for sale Without display of gun! J