Shapes of Clay - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 68

IN MEMORIAM

Beauty (they called her) wasn't a maid Of many things in the world afraid. She wasn't a maid who turned and fled At sight of a mouse, alive or dead. She wasn't a maid a man could "shoo" By shouting, however abruptly, "Boo!" She wasn't a maid who'd run and hide If her face and figure you idly eyed. She was'nt a maid who'd blush and shake When asked what part of the fowl she'd take. (I blush myself to confess she preferred, And commonly got, the most of the bird.) She wasn't a maid to simper because She was asked to sing—if she ever was. In short, if the truth must be displayed In puris—Beauty wasn't a maid. Beauty, furry and fine and fat, Yawny and clawy, sleek and all that, Was a pampered and spoiled Angora cat! I loved her well, and I'm proud that she Wasn't indifferent, quite, to me; In fact I have sometimes gone so far (You know, mesdames, how silly men are) As to think she preferred—excuse the conceit— My legs upon which to sharpen her feet. Perhaps it shouldn't have gone for much, But I started and thrilled beneath her touch! Ah, well, that's ancient history now: The fingers of Time have touched my brow, And I hear with never a start to-day That Beauty has passed from the earth away. Gone!—her death-song (it killed her) sung. Gone!—her fiddlestrings all unstrung. Gone to the bliss of a new régime Of turkey smothered in seas of cream; Of roasted mice (a superior breed, To science unknown and the coarser need Of the living cat) cooked by the flame Of the dainty soul of an erring dame Who gave to purity all her care, Neglecting the duty of daily prayer,— Crisp, delicate mice, just touched with spice By the ghost of a breeze from Paradise; A very digestible sort of mice. Let scoffers sneer, I propose to hold That Beauty has mounted the Stair of Gold, To eat and eat, forever and aye, On a velvet rug from a golden tray. But the human spirit—that is my creed— Rots in the ground like a barren seed. That is my creed, abhorred by Man But approved by Cat since time began. Till Death shall kick at me, thundering "Scat!" I shall hold to that, I shall hold to that.