Alf’s 3. Bit
Dole The Bell! Bell The Dole!
Alf’s 3. Bit - meaning Summary
Mocking Hollow Political Posturing
Pound satirizes superficial political figures and public complacency. The poem ridicules leaders as mere costumes — "shirts" without substance — while crowds read newspapers and accept soothing rhetoric. It contrasts hollow rhetoric and cyclical promises with persistent disillusion: decades pass with little change. The tone is mocking and impatient, directed at both sham authorities and a populace that tolerates them, ending in an exasperated invocation of Britain.
Read Complete AnalysesWhom can these duds attack? Soapy Sime? Slipp'ry Mac? Naught but a shirt is there Such as the fascists wear, Never the man inside Moving a nation-wide Disgust with hokum. Plenty to right of 'em, Plenty to left of 'em, Yeh! What is left of 'em, Boozy, uncertain. See how they take it all, . Down there in Clerkenwall Readin' th' pypers! Syrup and soothing dope, Sure, they can live on hope, Ain't yeh got precedent ? Ten years and twelve years gone, Ten more and nothing done, GOD save Britannia!
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