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. The spring-time of our years Is soon dishonoured and defiled in most By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand To check them. But, alas! none sooner shoots, If unrestrained, into luxuriant growth, Than cruelty, most devilish of them all. Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule And righteous limitation of its act, By which Heaven moves in pardoning guilty man; And he that shows none, being ripe in years, And conscious of the outrage he commits, Shall seek it and not find it in his turn.