Kindness to Animals (poet unknown)

Little children never give
Pain to things that feel and live:
Let the gentle Robin come
For crumbs you save at home, -
As his meat you throw along
He’ll repay you with a song;
Never hurt the timid hare
Peeping from her green grass lair,
Let her come and sport and play
On the lawn at close of day;
The little lark goes soaring high
To the bright windows of the sky,
Singing as if ‘twere always spring,
And fluttering on an untired wing, -
Oh! Let him sing his happy song,
Nor do these gentle creatures wrong.