Hunting

Grace

To pray for animals, the Bishop vows,
Is not canonical. Who prays for cows?
But prey upon them - that's the road to take.
Behold the Bishop blessing his beefsteak!

Mr Facing Both ways

When the Huntsman claims praise for the killing of foxes,
Which else would bring ruin to farmer and land,
Yet kindly imports them, preserves them, assorts them,
There's a dicrepance I fain understand.

When the Butcher makes boast of the killing of cattle,
That would multiply fast and the world over-run,
Yet so carefully breeds them, rears, fattens and feeds them -
Here also, methinks, a fine cobweb is spun.

Hark you, then, whose profession or pastime is killing!
To dispel your benignant illusions I'm loth;
But be one or the other, my double faced brother,
Be slayer or saviour - you cannot be both.

Dumb Animals

The air was full of summer sounds;
The lambs were gaily bleating;
Small birds were goissiping around,
Their joyful news repeating.

In tones vociferously clear
Rooks chattered overhead.
"Sweet creatures! How I love to hear
Dumb Animals," she said.

And as they parleyed each with each
Their thoughts and fancies showing,
It seemed as though a flood of speech
This earth were overflowing.

Methought with every breath that moved,
A gift of tongues was shed,
"How beautiful! I've always loved
Dumb Animals," she said.

The Sending of the Animals

For animals, you say were "sent"
For man's free use and nutriment.
Pray, then, inform me and be candid,
Why came they aeons before man did,
To spend long centuries, on earth
Awaiting their devourer's birth?
Those ill-timed chattels sent from heaven,
Were, sure, the maddest gift e'er given -
"sent" for man's use (can we believe it?)
When there was no man to receive it!

Henry S. Salt (1851-1939)

from 'Prometheus Unbound'

No longer now
He slays the lamb that looks him in the face,
And horribly devours his mangled flesh;
Which, still avenging nature's broken law,
Kindled all putrid humours in his frame,
All evil passions, and all vain belief,
Hatred, despair, and loathing in his mind,
The germs of misery, death, disease, and crime.
No longer now the winged habitants,
That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,
Flee from the form of man; but gather round,
And prune their sunny feathers on the hands
Which little children stretch in friendly sport
Towards these dreadless partners of their play.

from 'The Revolt of Islam'

Never again may blood of bird or beast
Stain with its venomous stream a human feast,
To the pure skies in accusation steaming.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Love Sonnet

The poor dumb creatures of the field, that call
So sadly to their young; whose narrow mind,
Consciously helpless, looks up to mankind
Through piteous pleading eyes; that live in thrall,
Or, stricken in the shambles, groaning fall -
Thinking of these, how little grace they find,
And then of thee who never wast unkind,
And of our love, I could weep for them all,
This is the gift of Love, that we, so blest,
Should feel for the afflicted; that we twain
Should be united against wrong and pain,
The slaughtered lamb, the wild bird's rifled nest,
And, most of all, the fraud and force that stain
Homes of the human poor and the oppressed.

John Barlas (Evelyn Douglas, 1860-1914)

The birds of the air die to sustain thee;
The beasts of the field die to nourish thee;
The fishes of the sea die to feed thee;
Our stomachs are their common sepulcher,
Good God! With how many deaths are our poor lives patched up?
How full of death is the life of momentary man!

Quarles (1592-1644)

from 'The Stag Impaled'

With head thrown back and heaving flank distressed
It hears the hounds - the hunter's bugle ring;
What hand shall save the tame unantlered thing?
What covert give the harmless creature rest?
Down the loing vale and o'er the woodland crest,
Across the flood with piteous fear for wing
It speeds, the leaps and with a desperate spring
Hangs mute, impaled, the fence spear in its breast.

When shall the heart of gentler England prove
Its pure compassion for all needless pain,
When shall we learn the bond of brotherhood
'Twixt man and these wild creatures of the wood,
And nobler days of sport bring nobler gain
For manhood sworn to pity and to love?

H.D. Rawnsley (1851-1920)

All night long, gnaw and gnaw,
Come with me, lady, see what I saw.
Only a beaver suffering pain.
God! Take that sound out of my brain.
A thing of the wilds - who cares how it dies?
God! Take that sight out of my eyes.

Edward Breck, 1925

The Boar

A boar who had enjoyed a happy span
For many a year and fed on many a man,
Called to account, softening his savage eyes,
Thus suppliant pleads his cause before he dies:

"For what am I condemned? My crimes no more
To eat a man than yours to eat a boar.
We seek not you, but take what chance provides,
Nature and mere necessity our guides:
You murder us in sport, then dish us up
For drunken feasts, a relish for the cup.
We lengthen not our meals: but you much feast;
Gorge till your bellies burst - pray, who's the beast?
With your humanity you keep a fuss,
But are in truth worse brutes than all of us."

George Granville (Lord Lansdowne, 1667-1735)

From 'Don Juan'

And angling too, that solitary vice,
Whatever Isaac Walton sings or says:
The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet
Should have a hook, and a small brown trout to pull it.

Lord Byron (George Gordon, 1788-1824, English poet)

The Rabbit

Not even when the early birds
Danced on my roof with showery feet
Such music as will come from rain -
Not even then could I forget
The rabbit in his hours of pain;
Where, lying in an iron trap,
He cries all through the deafened night -
Until his smiling murderer comes,
To kill him in the morning light.

Sport

Hunters, hunters,
Follow the chase,
I saw the fox's eyes,
Not in his face
But on it, big with fright -
Haste, hunters, haste!

Say, hunters, say
Is it a noble sport?
As rats that bite
Babies in cradles, so,
Such rats and men
Take their delight.

from 'Sheep'

They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,
They cried so loud I could not sleep;
For fifty thousand shillings down
I would not sail again with sheep.

W.H. Davies (1871-1940)

Hi!

Hi! Handsome hunting man,
Fire your little gun,
Bang! Now that animal
Is dead and dumb and done.
Never more to peep again, creep again, leap again,
Eat or sleep or drink again, oh, what fun!

I can't abear

I can't abear a butcher,
I can't abide his meat,
The ugliest shop of all is his,
The ugliest in the street;
Bakers' are warm, cobblers' dark
Chemists' burn watery lights;
But oh, the sawdust butchers shop
That ugliest of sights.

Tit for Tat

Have you been catching fish, Tom Noddy?
Have you snared a weeping hare?
Have you whistled "No Nunny" and gunned a poor bunny,
Or blinded a bird of the air?

Have you trod like a murderer through the green woods,
Through the dewy deep dingles and glooms,
While every small creature screamed shrill to Dame Nature
"He comes - and he comes!"?

Wonder I very much do,Tom Noddy,
If ever, when off you roam,
An ogre from space will stoop a lean face,
And lug you home:

Lug you home over his fence, Tom Noddy,
Of thorn-sticks nine yards high,
With your bent knees strung round his old iron gun
And your head a dan-dangling by:

And hung you up stiff on a hook, Tom Noddy,
From a stone-cold pantry shelf,
Whence your eyes will glare in an empty stare,
Till you are cooked yourself!

Walter De La Mare (1873-1956)

The Snare

I hear a sudden cry of pain!
There is a rabbit in a snare:
Now I hear the cry again,
But I cannot tell from where.

But I cannot tell from where
He is calling out for aid!
Crying on the frightened air,
Making everything afraid!

Making everything afraid!
Wrinkling up his little face!
And he cries again for aid;
- and I cannot find the place!

And I cannot find the place
Where his paw is in the snare!
Little One! Oh, Little One!
I am searching everywhere!

Little Things

Little things that run and quail,
And die, in silence and despair!

Little things, that fight and fail,
And fall, on sea, and earth, and air!

All trapped and frightened little things,
The mouse, the coney, hear our prayer!

And we forgive those done to us -
The lamb, the linnet, and the hare -

Forgive us all our tresspasses,
Little creatures, everywhere!

The Cage

It tried to get from out the cage;
Here and there it ran, and tried
At the edges and the side,
In a busy, timid rage.

Trying yet to find the key
Into freedom, trying yet,
In a timid rage to get
To its old tranquillity.

It did not know, it did not see,
It did not turn an eye, or care
That a man was watching there
While it raged so timidly.

It ran without a sound, it tried,
In a busy, timid rage,
To escape from out the cage
By the edges and the side.

James Stephens (1882-1950)

The steel jaws clamped and held him fast,
None marked his fright, none heard his cries.
His struggles ceased; he lay at last
With wide, uncomprehending eyes,
And watched the sky grow dark above
And watched the sunset turn to grey.
And quaked in anguish while he strove
To gnaw the prisoned leg away.
Then day came rosy from the east,
But still the steel jaws kept their hold,
And no one watched the prisoned beast,
But fear and hunger, thirst and cold.
Oppressed by pain, his dread grew numb,
Fright no more stirred his flagging breath.
He longed, in vain, to see him come
The cruel hunter, bringing death.
Then through the gloom that night came One
Who set the timid spirit free;
"I know thine anguish, little son;
So once men held and tortured Me."

F.F. Van de Water

from 'On Scaring Some Water Fowl'

The eagle from the cliffy brow,
Marking you his prey below,
In his breast no pity dwells,
Strong necessity compels:
But man, to whom alone is giv'n,
A ray direct from pitying Heav'n
Glories in his heart humane -
And creatures for his plaesure slain!

Robert Burns (1759-1796)

Tenderness

I have found out a gift for my fair,
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed:
But let me that plunder forbear,
She will say 'twas a barbarous deed.
For he ne'er could be true, she averr'd,
Who could rob a poor bird of its young:
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.

William Shenstone (1714-1763)

from 'The Sacrifice '

But the Buddha softly said,
"Let him not strike, great King," and therewith loosed
The victim's bonds, none staying him, so great
His presence was. Then, craving leave, he spake
Of life, which all creatures love and strive to keep,
Wonderful, dear and pleasant unto each,
Even to the meanest; yes, a boon to all
Where pity is, for pity makes the world
Soft to the weak and noble for the strong,
Unto the dumb lips of his flock he lent
Sad pleading words, showing how man, who prays
For mercy to the gods, is merciless,
Being as god to those; albeit all life
Is linked and kin, and what we slay have given
Meek tribute of the milk and wool, and set
Fast trust upon the hands which murder them.
Nor, spake he, shall one wash his spirit clean
By blood; nor gladden gods, being good, with blood,
Nor bribe them, being evil; nay, nor lay
Upon the brow of innocent bound beasts
One hair's weight of that answer each must give
For all things done amiss or wrongfully,
Alone, each for himself, reckoning with that
The fixed arithmetic of the universe
Which meteth good for good and ill for ill.

Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

Their humble bliss receive;
O, do not lightly take away,
The life thou canst not give.

Thomas Gisborne, 1758-1846