The Retired Cat.

A poets cat, sedate and grave     As poet well could wish to have,     Was much addicted to inquire     For nooks to which she might retire,     And where, secure as mouse in chink,     She might repose, or sit and think.     I know not where she caught the trick     Nature perhaps herself had cast her     In such a mould philosophique,     Or else she learnd it of her master.     Sometimes ascending, debonnair,     An apple-tree, or lofty pear,     Lodged with convenience in the fork,     She watchd the gardener at his work;     Sometimes her ease and solace sought     In an old empty watering pot:     There, wanting nothing save a fan,     To seem some nymph in her sedan     Apparelld in exactest sort,     And ready to be borne to court.     But love of change, it seems, has place     Not only in our wiser race;     Cats also feel, as well as we,     That passions force, and so did she.     Her climbing, she began to find,     Exposed her too much to the wind,     And the old utensil of tin     Was cold and comfortless within:     She therefore wishd instead of those     Some place of more serene repose,     Where neither cold might come, nor air     Too rudely wanton with her hair,     And sought it in the likeliest mode     Within her masters snug abode.     A drawer, it chanced, at bottom lined     With linen of the softest kind,     With such as merchants introduce     From India, for the ladies use,     A drawer impending oer the rest,     Half open in the topmost chest,     Of depth enough, and none to spare,     Invited her to slumber there;     Puss, with delight beyond expression,     Surveyd the scene, and took possession.     Recumbent at her ease, ere long,     And lulld by her own humdrum song,     She left the cares of life behind,     And slept as she would sleep her last,     When in came, housewifely inclined,     The chambermaid, and shut it fast;     By no malignity impelld,     But all unconscious whom it held.     Awakend by the shock (cried Puss)     Was ever cat attended thus?     The open drawer was left, I see,     Merely to prove a nest for me,     For soon as I was well composed,     Then came the maid, and it was closed.     How smooth these kerchiefs, and how sweet!     O what a delicate retreat!     I will resign myself to rest     Till Sol, declining in the west,     Shall call to supper, when, no doubt,     Susan will come and let me out.     The evening came, the sun descended,     And Puss remaind still unattended.     The night rolld tardily away     (With her indeed twas never day),     The sprightly morn her course renewd,     The evening grey again ensued,     And Puss came into mind no more     Than if entombd the day before,     With hunger pinchd, and pinchd for room,     She now presaged approaching doom,     Nor slept a single wink, or purrd,     Conscious of jeopardy incurrd.     That night, by chance, the poet watching,     Heard an inexplicable scratching;     His noble heart went pit-a-pat,     And to himself he saidWhats that?     He drew the curtain at his side,     And forth he peepd, but nothing spied.     Yet, by his ear directed, guessd     Something imprisond in the chest,     And, doubtful what, with prudent care     Resolved it should continue there.     At length a voice which well he knew,     A long and melancholy mew,     Saluting his poetic ears,     Consoled him and dispelld his fears:     He left his bed, he trod the floor,     He gan in haste the drawers explore,     The lowest first, and without stop     The rest in order to the top.     For tis a truth well known to most,     That whatsoever thing is lost,     We seek it, ere it come to light,     In every cranny but the right.     Forth skippd the cat, not now replete     As erst with airy self-conceit,     Nor in her own fond apprehension     A theme for all the worlds attention,     But modest, sober, cured of all     Her notions hyperbolical,     And wishing for a place of rest     Any thing rather than a chest.     Then steppd the poet into bed     With this reflection in his head:     moral.     Beware of too sublime a sense     Of your own worth and consequence:     The man who dreams himself so great,     And his importance of such weight,     That all around, in all thats done,     Must move and act for him alone,     Will learn in school of tribulation     The folly of his expectation.