The World’s Wit and Humor: An Encyclopedia in 15 Volumes. 1906.
Thomas Gray (17161771)Ode on a Drowned Cat
’T
Where China’s gayest art had dy’d
The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclin’d,
Gaz’d on the lake below.
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw, and purr’d applause.
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The genii of the stream;
Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betray’d a golden gleam.
A whisker first, and then a claw;
With many an ardent wish,
She stretch’d in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat’s averse to fish?
Again she stretch’d, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smil’d.)
The slipp’ry verge her feet beguil’d;
She tumbled headlong in.
She mew’d to ev’ry wat’ry god
Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no nereid stirr’d,
Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard.
A fav’rite has no friend!
Know, one false step is ne’er retriev’d,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize,
Nor all that glisters, gold.