Voices for the Speechless written by Abraham Firth
A >>
Abraham Firth >> Voices for the Speechless
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS
Selections for Schools and Private Reading
by
ABRAHAM FIRTH
Secretary of the American Humane Association
--which "plead the cause
Of those dumb mouths that have no speech."
LONGFELLOW
And I am recompensed, and deem the toils
Of poetry not lost, if verse of mine
May stand between an animal and woe,
And teach one tyrant pity for his drudge
COWPER
1883
PREFACE
The compiler of this little book has often heard inquiries by teachers of
schools, for selections suitable for reading and recitations by their
scholars, in which the duty of kindness to animals should be distinctly
taught.
To meet such calls, three successive pamphlets were published, and a fourth
consisting of selections from the Poems of Mr. Longfellow. All were
received with marked favor by the teachers to whom they became known.
This led to their collection afterwards in one volume for private
circulation, and now the volume is republished for public sale, with a few
omissions and additions.
All who desire our children to be awakened in their schools to the claims
of the humbler creatures are invited to see that copies are put in school
libraries, that they may be within the reach of all teachers. And this, not
for the sake of the creatures only.
As Pope has said, "Nothing stands alone; the chain holds on, and where it
ends, unknown."
Many readers may be surprised to find how many of the great poets have been
touched by the sufferings of the "innocent animals," and how loftily they
have pleaded their cause.
The poems in the collection are not all complete, because of their length
in some cases, and, in others, because a part only of each was suited to
the end in view. A very few, however, like "Geist's Grave" and "Don," could
not be divided satisfactorily.
To all who have aided in this humble undertaking, heartiest thanks are
given, and especially to its publishers who have accorded to it their
coveted approval and the benefit of their large facilities for making the
volume widely known.
May the lessons of kindness and dependence here taught with so much
poetical beauty and with such mingled justice, pathos and humor, find a
permanent lodgment in the hearts of all who may read them!
A. F.
BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A., June, 1883.
CONTENTS BY TITLES.
Introduction
A Prayer
He Prayeth Best
Our Morality on Trial
Sympathy
Mercy
Results and Duties of Man's Supremacy
Justice to the Brute Creation
Can they Suffer?
Growth of Humane Ideas
Moral Lessons
Duty to Animals not long recognized
Natural Rights
"Dumb"
Upward
Care for the Lowest
Trust
Say Not
See, through this Air
The Right must win
Animated Nature
Animal Happiness
No Grain of Sand
Humanity, Mercy, and Benevolence
Living Creatures
Nothing Alone
Man's Rule
Dumb Souls
Virtue
Little by Little
Loyalty
Animals and Human Speech
Pity
Learn from the Creatures
Pain to Animals
What might have been
Village Sounds
Buddhism
Old Hindoo
Truth
Our Pets
Egyptian Ritual
Brotherhood
A Birthday Address
Suffering
To Lydia Maria Child
Vivisection
Nobility
Acts of Mercy
The Good Samaritan
Love
Children at School
Membership of the Church
Feeling for Animals
Heroic
Effect of Cruelty
Aspiration
The Poor Beetle
The Consummation
Persevere
A Vision
Speak Gently
Questions
Heroes
For the Sake of the Innocent Animals
Ring Out
Fame and Duty
No Ceremony
True Leaders
Be kind to Dumb Creatures
Action
"In Him we Live"
Firm and Faithful
Heart Service
Exulting Sings
In Holy Books
The Bell of Atri
Among the Noblest
The Fallen Horse
The Horse
The Birth of the Horse
To his Horse
Sympathy for Horse and Hound
The Blood Horse
The Cid and Bavieca
The King of Denmark's Ride
Do you know
The Bedouin's Rebuke
From "The Lord of Butrago"
"Bay Billy"
The Ride of Collins Graves
Paul Revere's Ride
Sheridan's Ride
Good News to Aix
Dying in Harness
Plutarch's Humanity
The Horses of Achilles
The War Horse
Pegasus in Pound
The Horse
From "The Foray"
On Landseer's Picture, "Waiting for Master"
The Waterfowl
Sea Fowl
The Sandpiper
The Birds of Killingworth
The Magpie
The Mocking-Bird
Early Songs and Sounds
The Sparrow's Note
The Glow-Worm
St. Francis to the Birds
Wordsworth's Skylark
Shelley's Skylark
Hogg's Skylark
The Sweet-Voiced Quire
A Caged Lark
The Woodlark
Keats's Nightingale
Lark and Nightingale
Flight of the Birds
A Child's Wish
The Humming-Bird
The Humming-Bird's Wedding
The Hen and the Honey-Bee
Song of the Robin
Sir Robin
The Dear Old Robins
Robins quit the Nest
Lost--Three Little Robins
The Terrible Scarecrow and Robins
The Song Sparrow
The Field Sparrow
The Sparrow
Piccola and Sparrow
Little Sparrow
The Swallow
The Emperor's Bird's-Nest
To a Swallow building under our Eaves
The Swallow, the Owl, and the Cock's Shrill Clarion in the "Elegy"
The Statue over the Cathedral Door
The Bird let Loose
The Brown Thrush
The Golden-Crowned Thrush
The Thrush
The Aziola
The Marten
Judge You as You Are
Robert of Lincoln
My Doves
The Doves of Venice
Song of the Dove
What the Quail says
Chick-a-dee-dee
The Linnet
Hear the Woodland Linnet
The Parrot
The Common Question
Why not do it, Sir, To-day
To a Redbreast
Phoebe
To the Stork
The Storks of Delft
The Pheasant
The Herons of Elmwood
Walter von der Vogelweid
The Legend of the Cross-Bill
Pretty Birds
The Little Bird sits
The Living Swan
The Stormy Petrel
To the Cuckoo
Birds at Dawn
Evening Songs
Little Brown Bird
Life's Sign
A Bird's Ministry
Of Birds
Birds in Spring
The Canary in his Cage
Who stole the Bird's-Nest
Who stole the Eggs
What the Birds say
The Wren's Nest
On Another's Sorrow
The Shepherd's Home
The Wood-Pigeon's Home
The Shag
The Lost Bird
The Bird's must know
The Bird King
Shadows of Birds
The Bird and the Ship
A Myth
Cuvier on the Dog
A Hindoo Legend
Ulysses and Argus
Tom
William of Orange saved by his Dog
The Bloodhound
Helvellyn
Llewellyn and his Dog
Looking for Pearls
Rover
To my Dog "Blanco"
The Beggar and his Dog
Don
Geist's Grave
On the Death of a Favorite Old Spaniel
Epitaph in Grey Friars' Churchyard
From an Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog
The Dog
Johnny's Private Argument
The Harper
"Flight"
The Irish Wolf-Hound
Six Feet
There's Room enough for all
His Faithful Dog
The Faithful Hound
The Spider's Lesson
The Spider and Stork
The Homestead at Evening
The Cattle of a Hundred Farms
Cat-Questions
The Newsboy's Cat
The Child and her Pussy
The Alpine Sheep
Little Lamb
Cowper's Hare
Turn thy Hasty Foot aside
The Worm turns
Grasshopper and Cricket
The Honey-Bees
Cunning Bee
An Insect
The Chipmunk
Mountain and Squirrel
To a Field-Mouse
A Sea-Shell
The Chambered Nautilus
Hiawatha's Brothers
Unoffending Creatures
September
The Lark
The Swallow
Returning Birds
The Birds
Thrush
Linnet
Nightingale
Songsters
Mohammedanism--The Cattle
The Spider and the Dove
The Young Doves
Forgiven
Prayers
Dumb Mouths
The Parsees
Hindoo
The Tiger
Value of Animals
Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
INTRODUCTION.
* * * * *
THE BIBLE.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very
good.--Gen. i. 31.
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt
not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor
thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy
gates.--Ex. xx. 10.
For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand
hills.
I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are
mine.--Psa. l. 10, 11.
The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
The eyes of all wait upon thee: and thou givest them their meat in due
season.
Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living
thing.--Psa. cxlv. 9, 15, 16.
A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.--Prov. xii. 10.
Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to
destruction.--Prov. xxxi. 8.
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the
air, and they shall tell thee.--Job xii. 7.
Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and hide
thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy
brother. And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not,
then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee
until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.
In like manner shalt thou do with his ass; and so shalt thou do with his
raiment: and with all lost things of thy brother's, which he hath lost, and
thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise: thou mayest not hide thyself.
Thou shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox fall down by the way, and
hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely HELP him to lift them up
again.--Deut. xxii. 1-4.
Who _is_ a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the
transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger
for ever, because he DELIGHTETH IN MERCY. He will turn again, he will have
compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities: and thou wilt cast all
their sins into the depths of the sea.--Mic. vii. 18, 19.
Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south?
Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?--Job
xxxix. 26, 27.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
Provideth her meat in summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.
--Prov. vi. 6-8.
And the Lord sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto
him, There were two men in one city: the one was rich, and the other poor.
The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: But the poor man had
nothing save one little ewe-lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and
it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own
meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a
daughter.
And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his
own flock, and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was
come to him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that
was come to him.
And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to
Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely
die. And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and
because HE HAD NO PITY.--2 Sam. xii. 1-6.
Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights. Praise ye
him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.
Beasts and all cattle: creeping things, and flying fowl.--Psa. cxlviii. 1,
2, 10.
Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King
and my God.--Psa. lxxxiv. 3.
And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than
sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and
their left hand, and also much cattle?--Jonah iv. 11.
For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the
corn.--1 Tim. v. 18.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Matt. v. 7.
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor
gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.--Matt. vi. 26.
Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is
forgotten before God?--Luke xii. 6.
VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS.
* * * * *
A PRAYER.
Maker of earth and sea and sky,
Creation's sovereign, Lord and King,
Who hung the starry worlds on high,
And formed alike the sparrow's wing:
Bless the dumb creatures of thy care,
And listen to their voiceless prayer.
For us they toil, for us they die,
These humble creatures Thou hast made;
How shall we dare their rights deny,
On whom thy seal of love is laid?
Teach Thou our hearts to hear their plea,
As Thou dost man's in prayer to Thee!
EMILY B. LORD.
* * * * *
HE PRAYETH BEST.
O wedding guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide, wide sea:
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.
O sweeter than the marriage feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!--
To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old man, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!
Farewell! farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou wedding guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
* * * * *
OUR MORALITY ON TRIAL.
Bishop Butler affirmed that it was on the simple fact of a creature being
_sentient_, i.e. capable of pain and pleasure, that rests our
responsibility to save it pain and give it pleasure. There is no evading
this obligation, then, as regards the lower animals, by the plea that they
are not moral beings; it is _our_ morality, not _theirs_, which is in
question.
MISS F. P. COBBE.
* * * * *
"Never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false, never BE
CRUEL. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you."
C. DICKENS, in _David Copperfield_.
* * * * *
SYMPATHY.
Wherefore it is evident that even the ordinary exercise of this faculty of
sympathy implies a condition of the whole moral being in some measure right
and healthy, and that to the entire exercise of it there is necessary the
entire perfection of the Christian character, for he who loves not God, nor
his brother, cannot love the grass beneath his feet and the creatures that
fill those spaces in the universe which he needs not, and which live not
for his uses; nay, he has seldom grace to be grateful even to those that
love and serve him, while, on the other hand, none can love God nor his
human brother without loving all things which his Father loves, nor without
looking upon them every one as in that respect his brethren also, and
perhaps worthier than he, if in the under concords they have to fill their
part is touched more truly.
RUSKIN.
* * * * *
MERCY.
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptred sway:
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore,...
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,--
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
SHAKESPEARE: _Merchant of Venice_, Act 4, Sc. 1.
* * * * *
RESULTS AND DUTIES OF MAN'S SUPREMACY.
And in that primeval account of Creation which the second chapter of
Genesis gives us, the first peculiar characteristic of the Human Being is
that he assumes the rank of the Guardian and Master of every fowl of the
air and every beast of the field. They gather round him, he names them, he
classifies them, he seeks for companionship from them. It is the fit
likeness and emblem of their relation to him in the course of history. That
"earnest expectation of the creature" which the Apostle describes, that,
"stretching forth the head" of the whole creation towards a brighter and
better state as ages have rolled on, has received even here a fulfilment
which in earlier times could not have been dreamed of. The savage animals
have, before the tread of the Lord of Creation, gradually disappeared.
Those creatures which show capacity for improvement have been cherished and
strengthened and humanized by their intercourse with man. The wild horse
has been brought under his protecting care, has become a faithful
ministering servant, rejoicing in his master's voice, fondled by his
master's children. The huge elephant has had his "half-reasoning" powers
turned into the faculties of a gentle, benevolent giant, starting aside
from his course to befriend a little child, listening with the docility of
a child to his driver's rebuke or exhortation. The light, airy, volatile
bird seems to glow with a new instinct of affection and of perseverance
under the shelter of the firm hand and eye of man. The dog, in all Eastern
nations, even under the Old Testament itself, represented as an outcast,
the emblem of all that was unclean and shameful, has, through the Gentile
Western nations, been admitted within the pale of human fellowship. Truly,
if man has thus, as it were, infused a soul into the dumb, lawless animals,
what a community of feeling, what tenderness should it require from him in
dealing with them. What a heartless, in one word, what an _inhuman_ spirit
is implied by any cruelty towards those, his dependents, his followers, his
grateful, innocent companions, placed under his charge by Him who is at
once their Father and ours. Remember our common origin and our common
infirmities. Remember that we are bound to feel for their hunger, their
thirst, their pains, which they share with us, and which we, the
controllers of their destiny, ought to alleviate by the means which our
advancing civilization enables us to use for ourselves. Remember how
completely each of us is a god to them, and, as a god, bound to them by
godlike duties.
DEAN STANLEY.
* * * * *
JUSTICE TO THE BRUTE CREATION.
The rights of all creatures are to be respected, but especially of those
kinds which man domesticates and subsidizes for his peculiar use. Their
nearer contact with the human world creates a claim on our loving-kindness
beyond what is due to more foreign and untamed tribes. Respect that claim.
"The righteous man," says the proverb, "regardeth the life of his beast."
Note that word "righteous." The proverb does not say the merciful man, but
the righteous, the just. Not mercy only, but justice, is due to the brute.
Your horse, your ox, your kine, your dog, are not mere chattels, but
sentient souls. They are not your own so proper as to make your will the
true and only measure of their lot. Beware of contravening their nature's
law, of taxing unduly their nature's strength. Their powers and gifts are a
sacred trust. The gift of the horse is his fleetness, but when that gift is
strained to excess and put to wager for exorbitant tasks, murderous
injustice is done to the beast. They have their rights, which every
right-minded owner will respect. We owe them return for the service they
yield, all needful comfort, kind usage, rest in old age, and an easy death.
REV. DR. HEDGE.
* * * * *
CAN THEY SUFFER?
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those
rights which never could have been withheld from them but by the hand of
tyranny. It may come one day to be recognized that the number of legs, or
the villosity of the skin, are reasons insufficient for abandoning a
sensitive being to the caprice of a tormentor. What else is it that should
trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the
faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a
more rational as well as a more conversable animal than an infant of a day,
a week, or even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what
could it avail? The question is not "Can they reason?" nor "Can they
speak?" but "Can they suffer?"
BENTHAM.
* * * * *
GROWTH OF HUMANE IDEAS.
The disposition to raise the fallen, to befriend the friendless, is now one
of the governing powers of the world. Every year its dominion widens, and
even now a strong and growing public opinion is enlisted in its support.
Many men still spend lives that are merely selfish. But such lives are
already regarded with general disapproval. The man on whom public opinion,
anticipating the award of the highest tribunal, bestows its approbation, is
the man who labors that he may leave other men better and happier than he
found them. With the noblest spirits of our race this disposition to be
useful grows into a passion. With an increasing number it is becoming at
least an agreeable and interesting employment. On the monument to John
Howard in St. Paul's, it is said that the man who devotes himself to the
good of mankind treads "an open but unfrequented path to immortality." The
remark, so true of Howard's time, is happily not true of ours.
MACKENZIE'S _Nineteenth Century._
* * * * *
MORAL LESSONS.
And let us take to ourselves the moral lessons which these creatures preach
to all who have studied and learned to love what I venture to call the
moral in brutes. Look at that faithful servant, the ox! What an emblem in
all generations of patient, plodding, meek endurance and serviceable toil!
Of the horse and the dog, what countless anecdotes declare the generous
loyalty, the tireless zeal, the inalienable love! No human devotion has
ever surpassed the recorded examples of brutes in that line. The story is
told of an Arab horse who, when his master was taken captive and bound hand
and foot, sought him out in the dark amidst other victims, seized him by
the girdle with his teeth, ran with him all night at the top of his speed,
conveyed him to his home, and then, exhausted with the effort, fell down
and died. Did ever man evince more devoted affection?
Surely, something of a moral nature is present also in the brute creation.
If nowhere else we may find it in the brute mother's care for her young.
Through universal nature throbs the divine pulse of the universal Love, and
binds all being to the Father-heart of the author and lover of all.
Therefore is sympathy with animated nature, a holy affection, an extended
humanity, a projection of the human heart by which we live, beyond the
precincts of the human house, into all the wards of the many creatured city
of God, as He with his wisdom and love is co-present to all. Sympathy with
nature is a part of the good man's religion.
REV. DR. HEDGE.
* * * * *
Whenever any trait of justice, or generosity, or far-sighted wisdom, or
wide tolerance, or compassion, or purity, is seen in any man or woman
throughout the whole human race, as in the fragments of a broken mirror we
see the reflection of the Divine image.
DEAN STANLEY.
* * * * *
DUTY TO ANIMALS NOT LONG RECOGNIZED.
It is not, however, to be reckoned as surprising, that our forefathers did
not dream of such a thing as Duty to Animals. They learned very slowly that
they owed duties to _men_ of other races than their own. Only in the
generation which recognized thoroughly for the first time that the negro
was a man and brother, did it dawn that beyond the negro there were other
still humbler claimants for benevolence and justice. Within a few years,
passed both the Emancipation of the West Indian slaves and the first act
for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, of which Lord Erskine so truly
prophesied that it would prove not only an honor to the Parliament of
England, but an era in the civilization of the world.
MISS F. P. COBBE.
* * * * *
NATURAL RIGHTS.
But what is needed for the present is due regard for the natural rights of
animals, due sense of the fact that they are not created for man's pleasure
and behoof alone, but have, independent of him, their own meaning and place
in the universal order; that the God who gave them being, who out of the
manifoldness of his creative thought let them pass into life, has not cast
them off, but is with them, in them, still. A portion of his Spirit, though
unconscious and unreflecting, is theirs. What else but the Spirit of God
could guide the crane and the stork across pathless seas to their winter
retreats, and back again to their summer haunts? What else could reveal to
the petrel the coming storm? What but the Spirit of God could so geometrize
the wondrous architecture of the spider and the bee, or hang the
hill-star's nest in the air, or sling the hammock of the tiger-moth, or
curve the ramparts of the beaver's fort, and build the myriad "homes
without hands" in which fish, bird, and insect make their abode? The Spirit
of God is with them as with us,--consciously with us, unconsciously with
them. We are not divided, but one in his care and love. They have their
mansions in the Father's house, and we have ours; but the house is one, and
the Master and keeper is one for us and them.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13