To a Cat
To a Cat
Original Text
Hartley Coleridge, Poems, 2nd edn., 2 vols. (London: Moxon, 1851), II, 233.
1Nelly, methinks, 'twixt thee and me
2There is a kind of sympathy;
3And could we interchange our nature, --
4If I were cat, thou human creature, --
5I should, like thee, be no great mouser,
6And thou, like me, no great composer;
7For, like thy plaintive mews, my muse
8With villainous whine doth fate abuse,
9Because it hath not made me sleek
10As golden down on Cupid's cheek;
11And yet thou canst upon the rug lie,
12Stretch'd out like snail, or curl'd up snugly,
13As if thou wert not lean or ugly;
14And I, who in poetic flights
15Sometimes complain of sleepless nights,
16Regardless of the sun in heaven,
17Am apt to doze till past eleven, --
18The world would just the same go round
19If I were hang'd and thou wert drown'd;
20There is one difference, 'tis true, --
21Thou dost not know it, and I do.
Publication Start Year
1851
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1999.
Form