Fables for the Frivolous/The Domineering Eagle and the Inventive Bratling

by Guy Wetmore Carryl

THE DOMINEERING EAGLE

AND

THE INVENTIVE BRATLING

THE DOMINEERING EAGLE

AND

THE INVENTIVE BRATLING

---

O'er a small suburban borough
 Once an eagle used to fly,
Making observations thorough
 From his station in the sky,
And presenting the appearance
 Of an animated V,
Like the gulls that lend coherence
 Unto paintings of the sea.

Looking downward at a church in
 This attractive little shire,
He beheld a smallish urchin
 Shooting arrows at the spire;
In a spirit of derision,
 "Look alive!" the eagle said;
And, with infinite precision,
 Dropped a feather on his head.

Then the boy, annoyed distinctly
 By the freedom of the bird,
Voiced his anger quite succinctly
 In a single scathing word;
And he sat him on a barrow,
 And he fashioned of this same
Eagle's feather such an arrow
 As was worthy of the name.

Then he tried his bow, and, stringing
 It with caution and with care,
Sent that arrow singing, winging
 Towards the eagle in the air.
Straight it went, without an error,
 And the target, bathed in blood,
Lurched, and lunged, and fell to terra
 Firma, landing with a thud.

"Bird of freedom," quoth the urchin,
 With an unrelenting frown,
"You shall decorate a perch in
 The menagerie in town;
But of feathers quite a cluster
 I shall first remove for Ma;
Thanks to you, she'll have a duster
 For her precious objets d'art."

And the moral is that pride is
 The precursor of a fall.
Those beneath you to deride is
 Not expedient at all.
Howsoever meek and humble
 Your inferiors may be,
They perchance may make you tumble,
 So respect them. Q. E. D.