| |
| WANTON droll, whose harmless play | |
| Beguiles the rustics’ closing day, | |
| When, drawn the evening fire about, | |
| Sit aged crone and thoughtless lout, | |
| And child upon his three-foot stool, | 5 |
| Waiting till his supper cool; | |
| And maid, whose cheek outblooms the rose | |
| As bright the blazing faggot glows, | |
| Who, bending to the friendly light, | |
| Plies her task with busy sleight; | 10 |
| Come, show thy tricks and sportive graces, | |
| Thus circled round with merry faces. | |
| |
| Backward coil’d and crouching low, | |
| With glaring eyeballs watch thy foe,— | |
| The housewife’s spindle whirling round, | 15 |
| Or thread or straw, that on the ground | |
| Its shadow throws, by urchin sly | |
| Held out to lure thy roving eye; | |
| Then onward stealing, fiercely spring | |
| Upon the futile faithless thing. | 20 |
| Now, wheeling round with bootless skill, | |
| Thy bo-peep tail provokes thee still, | |
| As oft beyond thy curving side | |
| Its jetty tip is seen to glide; | |
| And see!—the start, the jet, the bound, | 25 |
| The giddy scamper round and round, | |
| With leap and toss and high curvet, | |
| And many a whirling somerset. | |
| |
| The featest tumbler, stage bedight, | |
| To thee is but a clumsy wight, | 30 |
| Who every limb and sinew strains | |
| To do what costs thee little pains; | |
| For which, I trow, the gaping crowd | |
| Requite him oft with praises loud. | |
| But, stopp’d awhile thy wanton play, | 35 |
| Applauses too thy pains repay; | |
| For now, beneath some urchin’s hand | |
| With modest pride thou tak’st thy stand, | |
| While many a stroke of kindness glides | |
| Along thy back and tabby sides. | 40 |
| Dilated swells thy glossy fur | |
| And loudly sings thy busy purr | |
| As, timing well the equal sound, | |
| Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, | |
| And all their harmless claws disclose, | 45 |
| Like prickles of an early rose; | |
| While softly from thy whiskered cheek | |
| Thy half-closed eyes peer mild and meek. | |
| |
| But not alone by cottage fire | |
| Do rustics rude thy feats admire. | 50 |
| Even he, whose mood of gloomy bent | |
| In lonely tower or prison pent, | |
| Reviews the coil of former days, | |
| And loathes the world and all its ways, | |
| What time the lamp’s unsteady gleam | 55 |
| Hath roused him from his moody dream, | |
| Feels, as thou gambol’st round his seat, | |
| His heart of pride less fiercely beat, | |
| And smiles, a link in thee to find, | |
| That joins it still to living kind. | 60 |
| |
| Whence hast thou, then, thou witless puss! | |
| The magic power to charm us thus? | |
| Is it that in thy glaring eye | |
| And rapid movements, we descry— | |
| Whilst we at ease, secure from ill, | 65 |
| The chimney corner snugly fill,— | |
| A lion darting on its prey, | |
| A tiger at his ruthless play? | |
| Or is it that in thee we trace | |
| With all thy varied wanton grace, | 70 |
| An emblem, view’d with kindred eye, | |
| Of tricksy, restless infancy? | |
| Ah! many a lightly sportive child, | |
| Who hath like thee our wits beguiled, | |
| To dull and sober manhood grown, | 75 |
| With strange recoil our hearts disown. | |
| |
| And so, poor kit! must thou endure, | |
| When thou becom’st a cat demure, | |
| Full many a cuff and angry word, | |
| Chas’d roughly from the tempting board. | 80 |
| But yet, for that thou hast, I ween, | |
| So oft our favour’d playmate been, | |
| Soft be the change which thou shalt prove, | |
| When time hath spoil’d thee of our love. | |
| Still be thou deem’d by housewife fat | 85 |
| A comely, careful, mousing cat, | |
| Whose dish is, for the public good, | |
| Replenished oft with savoury food. | |
| Nor, when thy span of life is past, | |
| Be thou to pond or dung-hill cast, | 90 |
| But gently borne on good man’s spade, | |
| Beneath the decent sod be laid; | |
| And children show with glistening eyes | |
| The place where poor old pussy lies. | |
| |
