C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Songs of Hiddigeigei, the Tom-Cat
By Joseph Viktor von Scheffel (1826–1886)
Undisturbed I long have dwelt;
Yet e’en pattern stars of virtue
Unexpected pangs have felt.
Dreams of yore steal in apace;
And the Cat’s winged yearnings journey,
Unrestrained, o’er Time and Space.
Cup of nectar never dry!
To Sorrento I would hasten,
On its topmost roof to lie.
The white sail upon the sea;
Birds of spring make sweetest concert
In the budding olive-tree.
Fairest of the feline race,—
And she softly pulls my whiskers,
And she gazes in my face;
Hark! I hear a growling noise:
Can it be the Bay’s hoarse murmur,
Or Vesuvius’s distant voice?
For to-day he takes his rest.
In the yard, destruction breathing,
Bays the dog of fiendish breast,—
Worst of all his evil race;
And I see my dream dissolving.
Melting in the sky’s embrace.
Those days are over and fled,
When the forest primeval crackling lay
’Neath the mammoth’s mighty tread.
For the lion, the desert’s own;
In sooth we are settled now, ’tis plain,
In a truly temperate zone.
By neither the Great nor the Few:
The world grows weaker and ever worse,
’Tis the day of the Small and the New.
But she too must pack and begone;
And the Infusoria’s Royal House
Shall triumph, at last, alone.
Hiddigeigei stands and sighs;
Death draws nigh with fell insistence,
Ruthlessly to close his eyes.
Counsels for his race he’d draw,
That amid life’s changeful measure
They might find some settled law.
Rough it lies and strewn with stones;
E’en the old and wise may often
Stumble there, and break their bones.
Useless wounds and useless pain;
Cats both black and brave unnumbered
Have for naught been foully slain.
Hark! I hear the laugh of youth.
Fools to-day and fools to-morrow,
Woe alone will teach them truth.
Listen how they laugh again!
Hiddigeigei’s lore and preaching
Locked in silence must remain.
Weak this arm, once strong and brave;
In the scene of all my travail,
In the granary, dig my grave.
All the fight’s fierce joy was mine:
Lay my shield and lance upon me,
As the last of all my line.
Like their sires’ can never grow:
Naught they know of strife of spirit;
Upright are they, dull and slow.
Move their minds, of force bereft;
Few indeed will keep as holy
The bequest their sires have left.
When at rest I long have lain,
One fierce caterwaul insistent
Through your ranks shall ring again:—
Hark to Hiddigeigei’s cry;
Hark, his wrathful ghostly mewing:—
“Flee from mediocrity!”