Besides, if the point were never so clear, I hope you do not
think me so ill bred or so imprudent as to forfeit all my interest in
the survivor. Oh, no; I would rather seem to mistake and imagine, to be
sure, it must be the tabby one that had met with this sad accident. Till
this affair is a little better determined, you will excuse me if I do
not cry, 'Tempus inane peto, requiem, spatiumque doloris.'"
He closes the letter by saying, "There's a poem for you; it is rather
too long for an epitaph." And then the familiar--
"'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dy'd
The azure flowers that blow:
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below."
Wordsworth's "Kitten and the Falling Leaves," is in the high, moralizing
style.
"That way look, my Infant, lo!
What a pretty baby show.
See the kitten on the wall,
Sporting with the leaves that fall,
* * * * *
"But the kitten, how she starts,
Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts
First at one and then its fellow,
Just as light and just as yellow:
There are many now--now one,
Now they stop, and there are none.
What intentness of desire
In her upward eye of fire!
With a tiger-leap halfway
Now she meets the coming prey,
Lets it go as fast, and then
Has it in her power again:
Now she works with three or four.
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