SAD MEMORIES.

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.