| |
| WANTON drole, whose harmless play | |
| Beguiles the rustic’s 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 shadows 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; | |
| Till, from thy centre starting far, | 25 |
| Thou sidelong rear’st, with rump in air, | |
| Erected stiff, and gait awry, | |
| Like madam in her tantrums high: | |
| Tho’ ne’er a madam of them all | |
| Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall, | 30 |
| More varied trick and whim displays, | |
| To catch the admiring stranger’s gaze. | |
| |
| Doth power in varied measures dwell, | |
| All thy vagaries wild to tell? | |
| Ah no! the start, the jet, the bound, | 35 |
| The giddy scamper round and round, | |
| With leap, and jerk, and high curvet, | |
| And many a whirling somerset, | |
| (Permitted be the modern muse | |
| Expression technical to use,) | 40 |
| These mock the deftest rhymer’s skill, | |
| But poor in art, tho’ rich in will. | |
| |
| The featest tumbler, stage-bedight, | |
| To thee is but a clumsy wight, | |
| Who every limb and sinew strains, | 45 |
| To do what costs thee little pains, | |
| For which, I trow, the gaping crowd | |
| Requites him oft with plaudits loud. | |
| But, stopp’d the while thy wanton play, | |
| Applauses too thy feats repay: | 50 |
| For then, beneath some urchin’s hand, | |
| With modest pride thou tak’st thy stand, | |
| While many a stroke of fondness glides | |
| Along thy back and tabby sides. | |
| Dilated swells thy glossy fur, | 55 |
| And loudly sings thy busy purr; | |
| As, timing well the equal sound, | |
| Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, | |
| And all their harmless claws disclose, | |
| Like prickles of an early rose; | 60 |
| While softly from thy whisker’d cheek, | |
| Thy half-clos’d eyes peer mild and meek. | |
| |
| But not alone by cottage fire | |
| Do rustics rude thy feats admire; | |
| The learned sage, whose thoughts explore | 65 |
| The widest range of human lore, | |
| Or, with unfetter’d fancy, fly | |
| Thro’ airy heights of poesy, | |
| Pausing, smiles with alter’d air, | |
| To see thee climb his elbow-chair, | 70 |
| Or, struggling on the mat below, | |
| Hold warfare with his slipper’d toe. | |
| The widow’d dame, or lonely maid, | |
| Who in the still but cheerless shade | |
| Of home unsocial, spends her age, | 75 |
| And rarely turns a letter’d page, | |
| Upon her hearth for thee lets fall | |
| The rounded cork, or paper ball, | |
| Nor chides thee on thy wicked watch | |
| The ends of ravell’d skein to catch, | 80 |
| But lets thee have thy wayward will, | |
| Perplexing oft her sober skill. | |
| Even he, whose mind of gloomy bent, | |
| In lonely tower or prison pent, | |
| Reviews the coil of former days, | 85 |
| And loathes the world and all its ways; | |
| What time the lamp’s unsteady gleam | |
| Doth rouse him from his moody dream, | |
| Feels, as thou gambol’st round his seat, | |
| His heart with pride less fiercely beat, | 90 |
| And smiles, a link in thee to find | |
| That joins him still to living kind. | |
| |
| Whence hast thou, then, thou witless puss, | |
| The magic power to charm us thus? | |
| Is it, that in thy glaring eye, | 95 |
| And rapid movements, we descry, | |
| While we at ease, secure from ill, | |
| The chimney-corner snugly fill, | |
| A lion darting on the prey, | |
| A tiger at his ruthless play? | 100 |
| Or is it, that in thee we trace, | |
| With all thy varied wanton grace, | |
| An emblem view’d with kindred eye, | |
| Of tricksy, restless infancy? | |
| Ah! many a lightly-sportive child, | 105 |
| Who hath, like thee, our wits beguil’d, | |
| To dull and sober manhood grown, | |
| With strange recoil our hearts disown. | |
| Even so, poor Kit! must thou endure, | |
| When thou becom’st a cat demure, | 110 |
| Full many a cuff and angry word, | |
| Chid roughly from the tempting board. | |
| And yet, for that thou hast, I ween, | |
| So oft our favour’d playmate been, | |
| Soft be the change which thou shalt prove | 115 |
| When time hath spoil’d thee of our love; | |
| Still be thou deem’d, by housewife fat, | |
| A comely, careful, mousing cat, | |
| Whose dish is, for the public good, | |
| Replenish’d oft with savoury food. | 120 |
| |
| Nor when thy span of life is past, | |
| Be thou to pond or dunghill cast; | |
| But gently borne on goodman’s spade, | |
| Beneath the decent sod be laid, | |
| And children show, with glistening eyes, | 125 |
| The place where poor old Pussy lies. | |
| |
