Classic Poem

Dear little friend, who, day by day,
Before the door of home
Art ready waiting till thy master come,
With monitory paw and noise,
Swelling to half-delirious joys,
Whether my path I take
By leafy coverts known to thee before,
Where the gay coney loves to play,
Or the loud pheasant whirls from out the brake
Unharmed by us, save for some frolic chase,
Or innocent panting race;
Or who, if by the sunny river's side
Haply my steps I turn,
With loud petition constantly dost yearn
To fetch the whirling stake from the warm tide;
Who, if I chide thee, grovellest in the dust,
And dost forgive me, though I am unjust;
Blessing the hand that smote: who with fond love
Gazest, and fear for me, such as doth move
Those finer souls which know, yet may not see,
And are wrapped round and lost in ecstasy;—


What are ye all, dear creatures, tame or wild?
What other nature yours than of a child,
Whose dumbness finds a voice mighty to call,
In wordless pity, to the souls of all,
Whose lives I turn to profit, and whose mute
And constant friendship links the man and brute?
Shall I consent to raise
A torturing hand against your few and evil days?
Shall I indeed delight
To take you, helpless kinsmen, fast and bound,
And while ye lick my hand
Lay bare your veins and nerves in one red wound,
Divide the sentient brain;
And while the raw flesh quivers with the pain,
A calm observer stand,
And drop in some keen acid, and watch it bite
The writhing life: wrench the still beating heart,
And with calm voice meanwhile discourse, and bland,
To boys who jeer or sicken as they gaze,
Of the great Goddess Science and her gracious ways?

Great Heaven! this shall not be, this present hell
And none denounce it; well I know, too well,
That Nature works by ruin and by wrong,
Taking no care for any but the strong,
Taking no care. But we are more than she;
We touch to higher levels, a higher love
Doth through our being move:
Though we know all our benefits bought by blood,
And that by suffering only reach we good;
Yet not with mocking laughter, nor in play,
Shall we give death, or carve a life away.
And if it be indeed
For some vast gain of knowledge, we might give
These humble lives that live,
And for the race should bid the victim bleed,
Only for some great gain,
Some counterpoise of pain,
And that with solemn soul and grave,
Like his who from the fire 'scapes, or the flood,
Who would save all, ay, with his heart's best blood,
But of his children chooses which to save!
Surely a man should scorn
To owe his weal to others' death and pain?
Sure 'twere no real gain
To batten on lives so weak and so forlorn?
Nor were it right indeed
To do for others what for self were wrong.
'Tis but the same dead creed,
Preaching the naked triumph of the strong;
And for this Goddess Science, hard and stern,
We shall not let her priests torment and burn:
We fought the priests before, and not in vain;
And as we fought before, so will we fight again.