O my cat, my cat is dead!
My old blinded, sick cat,
Gone, with all her nine lives fled,
Deader than a brick-a-bat!
Sing for this cat
“Requiescat,”
Sighing that herrace is sped.
Ere my one life had begun
She had grown to cat-hood;
She could leap, & she could run
Faster than a rat would,
Woe for this cat,
Now she is flat,
Flat & cold as any stone.
If her mind my Muse amused,
Her mutations muteness
Moves to mutiny my abused
Heart in grief’s acuteness.
Touching this cat
Requies-cat
Is all fate has not refused.
When I grew to play with her
She was like a sister,
Sheathed her sharp claws & say “Purr!”
Thankful when I kissed her.
Yet would this cat
Never miss rat,
Mole, or mouse, that dared to stir.
Round my neck she’d cling to sleep
Like a child who knew me;
When I whistled she would leap,
Wild with pleasure, to me;
Sighs arise that
Such a nice cat
Now in dust must slumber keep!
And when “fallen on evil days,
Old & blind,” – like Milton,
With no eyes a rat to chase,
No claws to have “kilt” one,
My attentions
Were as luncheons
Of sweet mice, to cheer her face.
Now her image sleeps with mine
Cat-typed by “Dog-erre.”
Still to tell of auld lang syne
All of sad or merry;
Surely that soul
Though some cat’s-hole
Finds a feline sanctuary!
Requiescat, Puss, in pace’,
Rest in peace, – if Latin
Christened “dog” the reader may see
Fit to address a cat in;
Requiescat
Suits with this cat,
For its rhyme come very pat in.
Requies-Cat