Extract from "We're Telling You" 

by C.S. Stokes

"We're of many sorts and sizes,

varied patternings and shades 
(Rose the chorus sung by creatures);

we're of high and humble grades:
Some are classed as kings among us,

there's the rank and  there's the file-
There are all and sundry, truly,

to the Kruger Park's square mile.

 

Ants and elephants, for instance,

are as different as can be,
And you'd know one from the other,

as you know land from the sea;
But though some are huge, some tiny,

though some fly, some stalk, some crawl,
We are very full of interest, big and little, one and all.

 

Man's no birthright to destroy us;

his Creator's ours, too:
If you ruin national treasures,

trouble will descend on you:
You've no right to spread destruction,

nor have you a right to kill-
Just because of lust for slaughter -

creatures living at God's will.

This book was first published in 1943