The cat's elegy

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The Cat’s Elegy

nea CAT'S
ELEGY

By
GELETT BURGESS

and

BURGES JOHNSON

CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1913

Copyright } ;
A.C. McCLURG & CO, i)
1913 Hit

Published March, 1913 fap)"
. ‘i

f

i Wang

a1) a a
ws! rat or Hy .
WAL mary

¥

I

PYHE tea-bell tolls for Nell
to pass the tray,
The glowing cook winds
slowly up the clock,

The ashman homeward wends his
weary way

And leaves a trail of cinders round
the block.

We OW fade the dingy fences on™?
.§ sur sight, :
And all the air is still, except,
maybe,
Where some street-organ, faintly
through the night,
Wafts “Holy City” and “The Bam-

> ’
a pF

VE that from yonder
sparsely slated roof
A moping Tom doth moan-
ingly complain

(While other felines darkly hold

aloof)

That his Maria lucklessly
was slain.

PM ENEATH the shade yon

- dying pear tree sheds,

#@ Where rest tomato cans on

. ashy heaps,

Where cast-off garments line the
pansy beds,

The flattened form of poor Maria

sleeps.
AT 7
yf

4 ra
‘ 4

Ferhat

in the morn,

The cook’s insistent, matuti-
nal grouch,

The scissors grinder’s harsh and rau-
cous horn

No more shall rouse her from her

weedy couch.

WOR her no more shall wave
7 the threatening broom,
Or busy housewife scat her
from the chair,
No children run to chase her from

the room,
Or pampered dogs besiege her in
her lair.

VII

FT sought she out appointed “
| rendezvous,
» In dalliance spent the fair-

hig estas est of her days,
Or nightly studied, with her art in
view,

The acoustic properties of alley-ways.

Vill

> FT did the predatory cur
; rejoice

s J To drive her, quivering, up

: this lonely tree;

How jocund did she raise nocturnal
voice!

How cursed the lodgers, kept awake

at three!

5ET not some grooméd lap
cat e’er decry
The humble realm of that
backyard obscure —
The battered gate, the clothesline
whence there fly
The short and simple flannels of

Xx

“R&A
Shae

PYHE boast of Tortoise-shell,\

the pomp of Manx, ee

The Persian, bearing pedi-
gree profound,

All dread alike the catcher’s nimble
shanks —

The public highways lead but to the
pound.

XI

er, gaunt and lean;

Has filled this alley with his
music rare;

Full many a cat is born to howl un-
seen,

And waste his sweetness on the city

air.

a

POR you, ye proud, impute to °
him the sin,
Who in his nightshirt did
his window raise,

And, hurling down his missile at the
din,

Ended the joyance of her
heartfelt lays!

XIII

= ETURNING from some
animated bust,
Back to his mansion, pale
and sick at heart,

Maria’s voice provoked his latent
lust
For blood; she fell a victim to her art.

sERHAPS in this neglected™

f form has been

_ A soul that in Bubastis
might have reigned;

The Goddess Pasht have recognized
as kin;
Or ruled Kilkenny ere its glory waned.

P= AR from the madding
1 crowd she was not feased,
The while her vagrom fan-
cies made her stray

Along the sequestered alley, where
she raised

The nightly noisy tenor of
her lay.

prey,
That weird elusive being e’er
could mark?
Who has not raised his window in

dismay
And blindly cast some weapon
through the dark ?

XVII

ET on some pavement, soon “
or late, there lies

The cat who tortures slum-
ber while she prowls;

While from the tomb the voice of
Nature cries,

As some small urchin imitates her

howls.

XVIII

T Requies Cat, now that

, she is dead

p (Nine times she died, and

“ therefore quite deceased)

Approach and read (with friends to
hold thy head)

This touching tribute to the

little beast.

EPITAPH

3 RE lies poor Puss, with
’ collar unbedight,

¥ ¥

- A homeless cat, a thing of
skin and bone,

Full-throated rose her swan song on
the night,

And now the dust-heap claims her
for its own.

: P

Rep a eh
WN ans Ca
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Hy
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