Page 13 - Poetry-Animals

Cats from the Shannon, Tweed, and Rhine;
From Cairo, Ispahan, and Metz.
And judges, skilled in lore feline,
With business look and red rosettes.

Beside us bearded Grenadiers
Plied squeaking flutes and hoarse trombones;
And high-born dames, and stately peers,
And Mrs. Smith and Mr. Jones;

And all the motley London crowd,—
The six-foot man, the undersized,
The stout, the slim—met, chatted, bowed,
Compared, condemned, and criticized.

A Marchioness, admiring, eyed
My graces o’er from head to tail.
“What is her price?” A clerk replied,
“My lady, she is not for sale.”

The crowds dispersed; the scarlet men
Put up their drums and winding horns;
And here am I at home again,
A medal now my breast adorns.

But, mistress dear, whilst I’m alive,
O never, never part from me;
I’m sure I never could survive
So dreadful a Cat-astrophe.

— G.S.O. (Chatterbox, 1875)

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