TO MRS. REYNOLDS’S CAT

Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric,

How many mice and rats hast in thy days

Destroy’d?- How many tit bits stolen? Gaze

With those bright languid segments green, and prick

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 the 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’dst on glass-bottled wall.