A LITTLE brooklet trilled a song <br />As merry as the day was long, <br />At which a music-hater stung <br />To frenzy said: 'I'll bind thy tongue, <br />And quell thy merriment:' That night, <br />A dam check'd babbler's song and flight; <br />But blind are ever hate and spite! <br />And so it fell, the brook did swell— <br />Ah, truth to say, ere dawn of day, <br />Had grown a sea, unquelled would be, <br />And soon with ruin, down the dell, <br />Dashed with a fierce triumphant yell; <br />And cried, 'Ha, ha! ho, ho! oh, la! <br />Where now thy skill, my voice to still?— <br />Ah, dost thou find that he who'd bind <br />The tongue e'en of a rillet, may <br />Be doomed to hear instead, one day, <br />What shall with terror seize, control, <br />And wring with agony his soul?— <br />In very deed then, reek the rede!' <br />Thus yell'd the flood and onward swept; <br />And music-hater heard and wept: <br />And so weep all who'd try, or long, <br />To render dumb the child of song.<br /><br />Joseph Skipsey<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-brooklet/
