To Mrs. Reynold's Cat

Keats, John (1795 - 1821)

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).

1Cat! who hast past thy grand climacteric,

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

6 Thy latent talons in me--and upraise

7 Thy gentle mew--and tell me all thy frays

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

12 Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,

13Still is that fur as soft as when the lists

14 In youth thou enter'dst on glass-bottled wall.

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

Rhyme

abbaabbacdcdcd

Form

sonnet