Evolve

I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other.

Henry David Thoreau

To All Compassion Gives

The Mouse's Petition,

 Found in the Trap where he had been confin'd all Night.

by Anna Laetitia Aikin

OH ! hear a pensive captive's prayer,
For liberty that sighs ;
And never let thine heart be shut
Against the prisoner's cries.

For here forlorn and sad I sit,
Within the wiry grate ;

And tremble at th' approaching morn,
Which brings impending fate.

If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd,
And spurn'd a tyrant's chain,
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain.

Oh ! do not stain with guiltless blood
Thy hospitable hearth ;
Nor triumph that thy wiles betray'd
A prize so little worth.

The scatter'd gleanings of a feast
My scanty meals supply ;
But if thine unrelenting heart
That slender boon deny,

The chearful light, the vital air,
Are blessings widely given ;
Let nature's commoners enjoy
The common gifts of heaven.

The well taught philosophic mind
To all compassion gives ;
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.

If mind, as ancient sages taught,
A never dying flame,
Still shifts thro' matter's varying forms,
In every form the same,

Beware, lest in the worm you crush
A brother's soul you find ;
And tremble lest thy luckless hand
Dislodge a kindred mind.

Or, if this transient gleam of day
Be all of life we share,
Let pity plead within thy breast,
That little all to spare.

So may thy hospitable board
With health and peace be crown'd ;
And every charm of heartfelt ease
Beneath thy roof be found.

So when unseen destruction lurks,
Which men like mice may share,
May some kind angel clear thy path,
And break the hidden snare.     

Living Graves

Living Graves

by George Bernard Shaw 

We are the living graves of murdered beasts,

Slaughtered to satisfy our appetites.

We never pause to wonder at our feasts,

If animals, like men, can possibly have rights.

We pray on Sundays that we may have light,

To guide our footsteps on the path we tread.

We’re sick of War, we do not want to fight –

The thought of it now fills our hearts with dread,

And yet – we gorge ourselves upon the dead.

Like carrion crows, we live and feed on meat,

Regardless of the suffering and pain

We cause by doing so, if thus we treat

Defenseless animals for sport or gain,

How can we hope in this world to attain

The PEACE we say we are so anxious for.

We pray for it, o’er hecatombs of slain,

To God, while outraging the moral law.

Thus cruelty begets its offspring – WAR.