Children are dumb to say how hot the day is, <br />How hot the scent is of the summer rose, <br />How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky, <br />How dreadful the tall soldiers drumming by. <br /> <br />But we have speech, to chill the angry day, <br />And speech, to dull the rose's cruel scent. <br />We spell away the overhanging night, <br />We spell away the soldiers and the fright. <br /> <br />There's a cool web of language winds us in, <br />Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: <br />We grow sea-green at last and coldly die <br />In brininess and volubility. <br /> <br />But if we let our tongues lose self-possession, <br />Throwing off language and its watery clasp <br />Before our death, instead of when death comes, <br />Facing the wide glare of the children's day, <br />Facing the rose, the dark sky and the drums, <br />We shall go mad no doubt and die that way.<br /><br />Robert Graves<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-cool-web/
