They call me cruel. Do I know if mouse or song-bird 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. ----C. S. Calverley. HOW WE BEAT THE FAVOURITE (_A Lay of the Loamshire Hunt Cup_.) |Aye, squire," said Stevens, "they back him at evens; The race is all over, bar shouting, they say; The Clown ought to beat her; Dick Neville is sweeter Than ever--he swears he can win all the way. "A gentleman rider--well, I'm an outsider, But if he's a gent who the mischiefs a jock? You swells mostly blunder, Dick rides for the plunder, He rides, too, like thunder--he sits like a rock. "He calls 'hunted fairly' a horse that has barely Been stripp'd for a trot within sight of the hounds, A horse that at Warwick beat Birdlime and Yorick, And gave Abdelkader at Aintree nine pounds. "They say we have no test to warrant a protest;