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Animal Rights History Timeline » [1660-1785] Enlightenment » Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Windsor Forest

[1713] Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations, (London, 1720; Google Books: Online Library of Free eBooks.

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings.
Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.
Ah ! what avail his glossy, varying dyes,
His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes,
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,
His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold?
Nor yet, when moist Arcturus clouds the sky,
The woods and fields their pleasing toils deny:
To plains with well-bred beagles we repair,
And trace the mazes of the circling hare.
(Beasts taught by us, their fellow-beasts pursue,
And learn of man each other to undo.)
With slaught'ring guns th' unweary'd fowler roves,
When frosts have whiten'd all the naked groves;
Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o'ershade,
And lonely woodcocks haunt the wat'ry glade.
He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye;
Strait a short thunder breaks the frozen sky.
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath,
The clam'rous plovers feel the leaden death:
Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare,
They fall, and leave their little lives in the air. (12-3)

The plumage of the dying pheasant may be over-elaborated; still, it is distinctly pleasing to find a recognition that other of God's creatures besides man have a right to enjoy themselves on this earth. (Cambridge History of English and American Literature, "Pope, Windsor Forest")

Ward & Trent, et al. "Pope, Windsor Forest," in vol. 9 of The Cambridge History of English and American Literature (New York: G.P. Putman's Sons, 1907-21; New York (Bartlby.com, 2000)