

I was pleased when I got the joke about the salesman’s phrase ("a marvelous aid offers assistance with your hearing problem?"), but very confused by the analysis that follows the poem ("the alliteration and consonance of the sibilants in line 1 are contrasted with the hard consonants..." "harsh alliteration 'bricks and bats'... complete the cacophonous picture"? "like the biblical figure Simeon in the Temple of Jerusalem"? I don’t get those associations at all).