Читать книгу Voices for the Speechless - Various - Страница 18

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I would not enter on my list of friends

(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,

Yet wanting sensibility) the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.

An inadvertent step may crush the snail

That crawls at evening in the public path;

But he that has humanity, forewarned,

Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.

The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,

And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes,

A visitor unwelcome, into scenes

Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove,

The chamber, or refectory, may die:

A necessary act incurs no blame.

Not so when, held within their proper bounds,

And guiltless of offence, they range the air,

Or take their pastime in the spacious field:

There they are privileged; and he that hunts

Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong,

Disturbs the economy of nature's realm,

Who, when she formed, designed them an abode.

The sum is this: If man's convenience, health,

Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims

Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.

Else they are all—the meanest things that are—

As free to live, and to enjoy that life,

As God was free to form them at the first,

Who in his sovereign wisdom made them all.

Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons

To love it too.

Cowper.