When Victor Hugo was a boy
With careless heart and fearless will
Like other, full of life and joy
He loved sometimes to maim and kill.
Playing one day along the road,
With boys as cruel glad and free,
They found a rust, grave old toad—
As happy as a toad may be,
With mud and sunshine, grubs and flies;—
“O, what an ugly beast!” they said,
They did not see his beautiful eyes,—
But stoned and bruised him till, half-dead,
The poor thing crawled into the rut
Where heavy wheels had left their track
And while they tugged and heaved to put
A great flat stone upon his back,
A loadcame rumbling down the ill
Drawn by a tired and beaten ass;
They dropped the stone, “Ha, ha! hold still,
Here’s better fun! to see them pass,—
They’ll fix him!” and they stood to see
The sad thing crushed beneath the wheels;
The poor ass, tired as tired could be,—
Bruised, bleeding, cursed,—some pity feels.
He saw the miserable toad
And though the lash cut like a knife,
He turned and strained, and wrung the load
From the deep rut, and saved a life!
Shamed by the mercy of a brute
The Boy looked, blushing in the eyes
Of his playfellows, who stood mute
Hearing his better promises;
“I’ll never wrong the humblest thing
My sport shall be no creature’s pain!
No beast again this taunt shall bring,
“Though human ye are less humane”
George Shepard Burleigh
