The Brooklet

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