They tell me I am beautiful: they praise my silken hair, My little feet that silently slip on from stair to stair: They praise my pretty trustful face and innocent grey eye; Fond hands caress me oftentimes, yet would that I might die!
Why was I born to be abhorr'd of man and bird and beast? The bulfinch marks me stealing by, and straight his song hath ceased; The shrewmouse eyes me shudderingly, then flees; and, worse than that, The housedog he flees after me — why was I born a cat?
Men prize the heartless hound who quits dry-eyed his native land; Who wags a mercenary tail and licks a tyrant hand. The leal true cat they prize not, that if e'er compell'd to roam Still flies, when let out of the bag, precipitately home.
They call me cruel. Do I know if mouse or songbird feels? I only know they make me light and salutary meals: And if, as‘ tis my nature to, ere I devour I tease‘ em, Why should a low-bred gardener's boy pursue me with a besom?
Should china fall or chandeliers, or anything but stocks - Nay stocks, when they're in flowerpots — the cat expects hard knocks: Should ever anything be missed — milk, coals, umbrellas, brandy - The cat's pitch'd into with a boot or any thing that's handy.
“I remember, I remember,” how one night I “fleeted by,” And gain'd the blessed tiles and gazed into the cold clear sky. “I remember, I remember, how my little lovers came;” And there, beneath the crescent moon, play'd many a little game.
They fought — by good St. Catharine,‘ twas a fearsome sight to see The coal-black crest, the glowering orbs, of one gigantic He. Like bow by some tall bowman bent at Hastings or Poictiers, His huge back curved, till none observed a vestige of his ears:
He stood, an ebon crescent, flouting that ivory moon; Then raised the pibroch of his race, the Song without a Tune; Gleam'd his white teeth, his mammoth tail waved darkly to and fro, As with one complex yell he burst, all claws, upon the foe.
It thrills me now, that final Miaow — that weird unearthly din: Lone maidens heard it far away, and leap'd out of their skin. A potboy from his den o'erhead peep'd with a scared wan face; Then sent a random brickbat down, which knock'd me into space.
Nine days I fell, or thereabouts: and, had we not nine lives, I wis I ne'er had seen again thy sausage-shop, St. Ives! Had I, as some cats have, nine tails, how gladly I would lick The hand, and person generally, of him who heaved that brick!
For me they fill the milkbowl up, and cull the choice sardine: But ah! I nevermore shall be the cat I once have been! The memories of that fatal night they haunt me even now: In dreams I see that rampant He, and tremble at that Miaow.
Cookies on Poetry Cove