No label

Come all, and listen to this little fable

Of the girl not fitted with a label

Her sister they had soon identified

“The arty one!” they all proclaimed with pride.

Yet somehow no-brand Mabel felt the stamp

That labelled someone else unrivalled champ

And seemed to say in this she should come second

Although her skills had not as yet been reckoned.

That seemed to say art had but one expression

And could be held by some as a possession

Denied to others as beyond their reach

As, “those who can, do; those who cannot, teach.”

As though the words were links to forge a chain

The foolish and the willful to restrain

From reaching high and courting cruel defeat

From being forced upon abject retreat.

But Mabel had no turn for still submission

To judgements passed in ignorant sortrition

And striving ’gainst the prophecy of home

Produced in contradiction this poor poem.