There, Robert, you have killed that fly, <br />And should you thousand ages try <br />The life you've taken to supply, <br />You could not do it. <br /> <br /> <br />You surely must have been devoid <br />Of thought and sense, to have destroyed <br />A thing which no way you annoyed- <br />You'll one day rue it. <br /> <br /> <br />'Twas but a fly perhaps you'll say, <br />That's born in April, dies in May; <br />That does but just learn to display <br />His wings one minute, <br /> <br /> <br />And in the next is vanished quite: <br />A bird devours it in his flight, <br />Or come a cold blast in the night, <br />There's no breath in it. <br /> <br /> <br />The bird but seeks his proper food; <br />And Providence, whose power endued <br />That fly with life, when it thinks good, <br />May justly take it. <br /> <br /> <br />But you have no excuses for't; <br />A life by Nature made so short, <br />Less reason is that you for sport <br />Should shorter make it. <br /> <br /> <br />A fly a little thing you rate, <br />But, Robert, do not estimate <br />A creature's pain by small or great; <br />The greatest being <br /> <br /> <br />Can have but fibres, nerves, and flesh, <br />And these the smallest ones possess, <br />Although their frame and structure less <br />Escape our seeing.<br /><br />Charles Lamb<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/thoughtless-cruelty/
