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Charles Lamb - Thoughtless Cruelty
Work rating: Medium

There, Robert, you have killed 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 destroyed
A thing which no way you annoyed—
  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 vanished 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 endued
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.
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