Then blame me not, altho’ my verse Sounds like an echo of C. S. C. Since still they make ballads that worse and worse Savour of diddle and hey-de-dee. From _Rhymes and Renderings_. Cambridge. Macmillan and Bowes. 1887. “HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE! THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE.” Ah! joy with me, my neighbours, joy with me, And let the air resound with glad acclaims, For she indeed, our furry feline friend, Hath shown herself disposed to music’s charms, And with the viol held in nimble paw, Scrapeth the tunes of mirthful melody. Meanwhile, aroused from out her careless mood, The Cow forgets her grazing on the grass, Forgets the blades most choice and succulent, Forgets the pail defrauded of its milk, Forgets the aim and tenor of her life, And rapt in rumination at the sound, Listens, until the sweet mysterious strains Fire her most inmost soul: then wildly forth In frantic frenzy speeds her wind-whirled way, Stirred by the notes of feline minstrelsy. But, louder comes the soul-inspiring sound, Till, boiling o’er with ecstacy, she leaps Far from the earth, and further still, away. I may not tell the distance of her leap, ’Twas all too far for mortal eye to trace; Yet afterwards her corse came hurtling down,―― For in the mighty magnitude of space Through which she sprang with impulse unrestrained, Her very swiftness had abstracted breath―― And on her hoof a substance green was found Which soon, ’twas marked, was nothing else than cheese; That so ’twould seem she had all but o’ertopped In that one bound the far far distant moon, A portion of whose substance there appeared Hoof-stricken, and adhering to its foe, To warn all others from such lofty leaps. Then was there mourning for the direful death; The horse, the hen, the labourer, and the lamb Flowed down in floods of saline tears sincere: While eke the cat hath stayed her viol’s notes, And wipes with trembling paw each streaming eye: But he, that very fiend in canine form, Brawls in a bluff brutality of mirth, Cries that “I’sooth it was a merry sport;” Aye laughs, as if each lateral wall of ribs Would burst asunder; for methinks that she While yet in life, our much-lamented cow, The while the dog was barking at her heel, With well-aimed kick erst stretched him on the plain; Wherefore at her mishap in spiteful spleen He now with cachinnations fills the air. Ah! would that I could end my tale aright, And give to something some good attribute. But no:――for in this wicked worthless world Seldom we see a soul untouched by taint:―― Let me then hurry o’er the final scene, The shameful shift to make emolument Amid the wild confusion that prevailed. ’Tis said the earthenware receptacle, Surnamed the Dish, who, highly held in honour, Maintained the meats, and lived a lordly life, Struck by a sudden guilty greed of gain, And noting furthermore that none espied,