Thoughtless Cruelty

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Title:     Thoughtless Cruelty
Author: Charles Lamb [More Titles by Lamb]

There, Robert, you have kill'd that fly--
And should you thousand ages try
The life you've taken to supply,
You could not do it.

You surely must have been devoid
Of thought and sense, to have destroy'd
A thing which no way you annoy'd--
You'll one day rue it.

'Twas but a fly perhaps you'll say,
That's born in April, dies in May;
That does but just learn to display
His wings one minute,

And in the next is vanish'd quite.
A bird devours it in his flight--
Or come a cold blast in the night,
There's no breath in it.

The bird but seeks his proper food--
And Providence, whose power endu'd
That fly with life, when it thinks good,
May justly take it.

But you have no excuses for't--
A life by Nature made so short,
Less reason is that you for sport
Should shorter make it.

A fly a little thing you rate--
But, Robert, do not estimate
A creature's pain by small or great;
The greatest being

Can have but fibres, nerves, and flesh,
And these the smallest ones possess,
Although their frame and structure less
Escape our seeing.

[The end]
Charles Lamb's poem: Thoughtless Cruelty

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