Sad Memories.

They tell me I am beautiful: they praise my silken hair,     My little feet that silently slip on from stair to stair:     They praise my pretty trustful face and innocent grey eye;     Fond hands caress me oftentimes, yet would that I might die!     Why was I born to be abhorr'd of man and bird and beast?     The bulfinch marks me stealing by, and straight his song hath ceased;     The shrewmouse eyes me shudderingly, then flees; and, worse than that,     The housedog he flees after me - why was I born a cat?     Men prize the heartless hound who quits dry-eyed his native land;     Who wags a mercenary tail and licks a tyrant hand.     The leal true cat they prize not, that if e'er compell'd to roam     Still flies, when let out of the bag, precipitately home.     They call me cruel. Do I know if mouse or songbird 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.