Two Poems About Being Gentle with Animals

From "Snake" by D.H. Lawrence

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
.....
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more

That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
.....

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
......

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

.... 
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords

Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Little Things is the poem I would tell my children when we saw an animal killed by cars

or in the city.

Little Things

Little Things, that run and quail,
And die, in silence and despair!
Little things, that fight and fail,
And fall, on sea and earth and air!
All trapped and frightened little things,
The mouse, the coney, hear our prayer!
As we forgive those done to us,
- the lamb, the linnet and the hare -
forgive us all our trespasses,
little creatures, everywhere!

by James Stevens, 1926