Thus harmony and family accord Were driven from Paradise; and in that hour The seeds of cruelty, that since have swelled To such gigantic and enormous growth, Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil.
Hence date the persecution and the pain That man inflicts on all inferior kinds, Regardless of their plaints. To make him sport, To gratify the frenzy of his wrath, Or his base gluttony, are causes good And just in his account, why bird and beast Should suffer torture, and the streams be dyed With blood of their inhabitants impaled.
Earth groans beneath the burden of a war Waged with defenceless innocence, while he, Not satisfied to prey on all around, Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangs Needless, and first torments ere he devours.
Now happiest they that occupy the scenes The most remote from his abhorred resort, Whom once as delegate of God on earth They feared, and as His perfect image loved.
The wilderness is theirs with all its caves, Its hollow glens, its thickets, and its plains Unvisited by man. There they are free, And howl and roar as likes them, uncontrolled, Nor ask his leave to slumber or to play.
Woe to the tyrant, if he dare intrude Within the confines of their wild domain;The lion tells him, "I am monarch here;"
And if he spares him, spares him on the terms Of royal mercy, and through generous scorn To rend a victim trembling at his foot.
In measure, as by force of instinct drawn, Or by necessity constrained, they live Dependent upon man, those in his fields, These at his crib, and some beneath his roof;They prove too often at how dear a rate He sells protection. Witness, at his foot The spaniel dying for some venial fault, Under dissection of the knotted scourge;Witness the patient ox, with stripes and yells Driven to the slaughter, goaded as he runs To madness, while the savage at his heels Laughs at the frantic sufferer's fury spent Upon the guiltless passenger o'erthrown.
He too is witness, noblest of the train That wait on man, the flight-performing horse:
With unsuspecting readiness he takes His murderer on his back, and, pushed all day, With bleeding sides, and flanks that heave for life, To the far-distant goal, arrives and dies.
So little mercy shows who needs so much!
Does law, so jealous in the cause of man, Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None.
He lives, and o'er his brimming beaker boasts (As if barbarity were high desert)
The inglorious feat, and, clamorous in praise Of the poor brute, seems wisely to suppose The honours of his matchless horse his own.
But many a crime, deemed innocent on earth, Is registered in heaven, and these, no doubt, Have each their record, with a curse annexed.
Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, But God will never. When He charged the Jew To assist his foe's down-fallen beast to rise, And when the bush-exploring boy that seized The young, to let the parent bird go free, Proved He not plainly that His meaner works Are yet His care, and have an interest all, All, in the universal Father's love?
On Noah, and in him on all mankind, The charter was conferred by which we hold The flesh of animals in fee, and claim, O'er all we feed on, power of life and death.
But read the instrument, and mark it well;The oppression of a tyrannous control Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through sin, Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute.
The Governor of all, Himself to all So bountiful, in whose attentive ear The unfledged raven and the lion's whelp Plead not in vain for pity on the pangs Of hunger unassuaged, has interposed, Not seldom, His avenging arm, to smite The injurious trampler upon nature's law, That claims forbearance even for a brute.
He hates the hardness of a Balaam's heart, And, prophet as he was, he might not strike The blameless animal, without rebuke, On which he rode. Her opportune offence Saved him, or the unrelenting seer had died.
He sees that human equity is slack To interfere, though in so just a cause, And makes the task His own; inspiring dumb And helpless victims with a sense so keen Of injury, with such knowledge of their strength, And such sagacity to take revenge, That oft the beast has seemed to judge the man.
An ancient, not a legendary tale, By one of sound intelligence rehearsed, (If such, who plead for Providence may seem In modern eyes) shall make the doctrine clear.
Where England, stretched towards the setting sun, Narrow and long, o'erlooks the western wave, Dwelt young Misagathus; a scorner he Of God and goodness, atheist in ostent, Vicious in act, in temper savage-fierce.
He journeyed, and his chance was, as he went, To join a traveller of far different note--Evander, famed for piety, for years Deserving honour, but for wisdom more.
Fame had not left the venerable man A stranger to the manners of the youth, Whose face, too, was familiar to his view.
Their way was on the margin of the land, O'er the green summit of the rocks whose base Beats back the roaring surge, scarce heard so high.
The charity that warmed his heart was moved At sight of the man-monster. With a smile Gentle and affable, and full of grace, As fearful of offending whom he wished Much to persuade, he plied his ear with truths Not harshly thundered forth or rudely pressed, But, like his purpose, gracious, kind, and sweet.
"And dost thou dream," the impenetrable man Exclaimed, "that me the lullabies of age, And fantasies of dotards such as thou, Can cheat, or move a moment's fear in me?
Mark now the proof I give thee, that the brave Need no such aids as superstition lends To steel their hearts against the dread of death."
He spoke, and to the precipice at hand Pushed with a madman's fury. Fancy shrinks, And the blood thrills and curdles at the thought Of such a gulf as he designed his grave.
But though the felon on his back could dare The dreadful leap, more rational, his steed Declined the death, and wheeling swiftly round, Or ere his hoof had pressed the crumbling verge, Baffled his rider, saved against his will.
