And rob our household of our only cat
That was of age to combat with a rat;
With outstretched hoe I slew him at the door,
And taught him never to come there no more!
William Cowper.
A POET'S Cat, sedate and grave
As poet well could wish to have,
Was much addicted to inquire
For nooks to which she might retire,
And where, secure as mouse in chink,
She might repose, or sit and think.
I know not where she caught the trick;
Nature perhaps herself had cast her
In such a mold PHILOSOPHIQUE,
Or else she learned it of her master.
Sometimes ascending, debonair,
An apple-tree, or lofty pear,
Lodged with convenience in the fork,
She watched the gardener at his work;
Sometimes her ease and solace sought
In an old empty watering-pot,
There wanting nothing, save a fan,
To seem some nymph in her sedan,
Appareled in exactest sort,
And ready to be borne to court.
But love of change it seems has place
Not only in our wiser race;
Cats also feel, as well as we,
That passion's force, and so did she.
Her climbing, she began to find,
Exposed her too much to the wind,
And the old utensil of tin
Was cold and comfortless within:
She therefore wished, instead of those,
Some place of more serene repose,
Where neither cold might come, nor air
Too rudely wanton in her hair,
And sought it in the likeliest mode
Within her master's snug abode.
A drawer, it chanced, at bottom lined
With linen of the softest kind,
With such as merchants introduce
From India, for the ladies' use;
A drawer, impending o'er the rest,
Half open, in the topmost chest,
Of depth enough, and none to spare,
Invited her to slumber there;
Puss with delight beyond expression,
Surveyed the scene and took possession.
Recumbent at her ease, ere long,
And lulled by her own humdrum song,
She left the cares of life behind,
And slept as she would sleep her last,
When in came, housewifely inclined,
The chambermaid, and shut it fast,
By no malignity impelled,
But all unconscious whom it held.
Awakened by the shock (cried puss)
66 Was ever cat attended thus!
The open drawer was left, I see,
Merely to prove a nest for me,
For soon as I was well composed,
Then came the maid, and it was closed.
How smooth those 'kerchiefs, and how sweet
Oh what a delicate retreat!
I will resign myself to rest
Till Sol declining in the west,
Shall call to supper, when, no doubt,
Susan will come, and let me out."
The evening came, the sun descended,
And puss remained still unattended.
The night rolled tardily away
(With her indeed 'twas never day),
The sprightly morn her course renewed,
The evening gray again ensued,
And puss came into mind no more
Than if entombed the day before;
With hunger pinched, and pinched for room,
She now presaged approaching doom.
Nor slept a single wink, nor purred,
Conscious of jeopardy incurred.
That night, by chance, the poet, watching,
Heard an inexplicable scratching;
His noble heart went pit-a-pat,
And to himself he said "What's that?"
He drew the curtain at his side,
And forth he peeped, but nothing spied.
Yet, by his ear directed, guessed
Something imprisoned in the chest;
And, doubtful what, with prudent care
Resolved it should continue there.
At length a voice which well he knew,
A long and melancholy mew,
Saluting his poetic ears,
Consoled him, and dispelled his fears;
He left his bed, he trod the floor,
He 'gan in haste the drawers explore,
The lowest first, and without stop
The next in order to the top.
For 'tis a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In every cranny but the right.
Forth skipped the cat, not now replete
As erst with airy self-conceit,
Nor in her own fond comprehension,
A theme for all the world's attention,
But modest, sober, cured of all
Her notions hyperbolical,
And wishing for a place of rest,
Any thing rather than a chest.
Then stepped the poet into bed
With this reflection in his head:
Beware of too sublime a sense
Of your own worth and consequence.
The man who dreams himself so great,
And his importance of such weight,
That all around in all that's done
Must move and act for him alone,
Will learn in school of tribulation
The folly of his expectation.
OH, many have told of the monkeys of old,
What a pleasant race they were,
And it seems most true that I and you
Are derived from an apish pair.
They all had nails, and some had tails,
And some-no 66 accounts in arrear";
They climbed up the trees, and they scratched out the-these Of course I will not mention here.
They slept in a wood, or wherever they could,
For they didn't know how to make beds;
They hadn't got huts; they dined upon nuts,
Which they cracked upon each other's heads.
They hadn't much scope, for a comb, brush or soap,
Or towels, or kettle or fire.
They had no coats nor capes, for ne'er did these apes
Invent what they didn't require.
The sharpest baboon never used fork or spoon,
Nor made any boots for his toes,
Nor could any thief steal a silk handker-chief,
For no ape thought much of his nose;
They had cold collations; they ate poor relations:
Provided for thus, by-the-bye.
No Ou-rang-ou-tang a song ever sang
He couldn't, and so didn't try.
From these though descended our manners are mended,
Though still we can grin and backbite!
We cut up each other, be he friend or brother,
And tales are the fashion-at night.
This origination is all speculation—
We gamble in various shapes;
So Mr. Darwin may speculate in
Our ancestors having been apes.
JACOB! I do not like to see thy nose
Turn'd up in scornful curve at yonder pig,
It would be well, my friend, if we. like him,
Were perfect in our kind! . . And why despise
The sow-born grunter? . . He is obstinate,
Thou answerest; ugly, and the filthiest beast
That banquets upon offal. . . . Now I pray you
Hear the pig's counsel.
Is he obstinate?
We must not, Jacob, be deceived by words;
We must not take them as unheeding hands
Receive base money at the current worth
But with a just suspicion try their sound,
And in the even balance weight them well
See now to what this obstinacy comes:
A poor, mistreated, democratic beast,
He knows that his unmerciful drivers seek
Their profit, and not his. He hath not learned
That pigs were made for man, . . born to be brawn'd
And baconized: that he must please to give
Just what his gracious masters please to take;
Perhaps his tusks, the weapons Nature gave
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