Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d? How many *** bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and *****
Those velvet ears - but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me - and upraise
Thy gentle mew - and tell me all thy frays,
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists -
For all thy wheezy asthma - and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off - and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft, as when the lists
In youth thou enter’dest on glass bottled wall.