To Mrs. Reynold's Cat

To Mrs. Reynold's Cat

Original Text
The Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. W. Garrod, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958): 534 (text from autograph MS in Buffalo and Erie County Public Library).
2    How many mice and rats hast in thy days
3    Destroy'd?--how many tit bits stolen? Gaze
4With those bright languid segments green and prick
5Those velvet ears--but pr'ythee do not stick
8Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
9Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists--
10    For all the wheezy asthma,--and for all
11Thy tail's tip is nicked off--and though the fists

Notes

1] Mrs Reynolds, mother of Keats' friend John Hamilton Reynolds.grand climacteric: "the 63rd year of life (63 = 7 × 9), supposed to be specially critical" (OED, "Climacteric," a. and n., B. 1). Back to Line
6] latent: hidden. Back to Line
7] mew: miaow (onomatopoetic). Back to Line
12] maul: blow. Back to Line
13] lists: fighting arena. Back to Line
14] glass-bottled wall: a wall whose top is paved with shards of broken glass so as to discourage anyone climbing on or over it. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1830
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2007
Form