LIKE John Clare (yesterday’s poet) Robert Burns had a great empathy with nature and wild creatures. Here he rails against the cruelty of a hunter.

ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE LIMP BY ME WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT AT

Inhuman man! Curse on thy barb’rous art,

And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;

May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,

Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!

Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field,

The bitter little that of life remains:

No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains

To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.

Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest,

No more of rest, but now they dying bed!

The sheltering rushes whistling o’er thy head,

The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest.

Oft as by winding Nith I, musing, wait

The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn,

I’ll miss thee sporting o’er the dewy lawn

And curse the ruffian’s aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.