Book ' U^U'~ 
 
 
 Gopyii^htN° 
 
 *^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
The Cat's Elegy 
 
THE CAT'S 
 ELEGY 
 
 By r 
 
 GELETT BURGESS 
 
 and 
 
 BURGES JOHNSON 
 
 CHICAGO 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
 
 2913 
 
Copyright t> ^ 3 ^ 
 
 A. C McCLURG & Ca ' A *j 
 
 Published March, 19i3 ', ^ '-^ 
 
 ©CU332780 
 
The Cat's Elegy 
 
THE 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. 
 
^'^if 
 
O W fade the dingy fences on 
 
 our sight, 
 And all the air is still, except, 
 maybe, 
 "Where some street-organ, faintly 
 
 through the night, 
 Wafts "Holy City" and "The Bam- 
 boo Tree." 
 
le- 
 
 Ha; 
 
 left's 
 
 T"" 
 
 AVE 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. 
 
 £0:3 
 
IV 
 
 BENEATH 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. 
 
'.--ir/^^ 
 
 THE wheezy call of milkmen 
 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. 
 
DC3 
 
OFT sought she out appointed 
 rendezvous, 
 In dalliance spent the fair- 
 est of her days, 
 Or nightly studied, with her art in 
 
 view. 
 The acoustic properties of alley-ways. 
 
 it. 
 
 J 
 
 V 
 
IX 
 
 IT 
 
 LET not some groomed 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 
 the poor. 
 
THE boast of Tortoise-shell, 
 the pomp of Manx, 
 The Persian, bearing pedi- 
 gree profound, 
 All dread alike the catcher's nimble 
 
 shanks — 
 The public highways lead but to the 
 pound. 
 
 ^ 
 
^'^i? 
 
FULL many a nightly prowl- 
 er, gaunt and lean; 
 Has filled this alley with his 
 music rare; 
 Full many a cat is bom to howl un- 
 seen, 
 And waste his sweetness on the city 
 
lOfsV^ 
 
 *0R 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! 
 
 
i * > 
 
 / 1 
 
 RETURNING 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. 
 
 A. 
 
.-^r#< 
 
 p 
 
 ERHAPS in this neglected 
 
 form has been 
 A soul that in Bubastis 
 SB^ might have reigned; 
 
 The Goddess Pasht have recognized 
 
 as kin; 
 Or ruled Kilkenny ere its glory waned. 
 
XV 
 
 ^AR from the madding 
 
 crowd she was not f eased, 
 The while her vagrom fan- 
 cies made her stray 
 Along the sequestered alley, where 
 
 she raised "^ 
 
 The nightly noisy tenor of 
 her lay. 
 
 ~DC3 
 CZDD 
 
I 
 
 
 F 
 
 OR who, to grim insomnia 
 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 ? 
 
\v^-^>, 
 
 fc— 
 
 "£} 
 
,^.^.-^i^^ 
 
 Y 
 
 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 
 
 BUT Requies Cat, now that 
 she is dead 
 (Nine times she died, and 
 therefore quite deceased) 
 Approach and read (with friends to 
 
 hold thy head) 
 This touching tribute to the 
 little beast. 
 
H 
 
 ERE 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. 
 
 ^, 
 
MAR 13 1913 
 
■'1 yJt^,'.