Asleep, yet lending half an ear To travellers on the Portsmouth road ;— Then some, who through this garden pass, People who lived here long ago The dachs-hound Geist, their little friend. Matthew Arnold. To my Cat HALF loving-kindliness, and half-disdain, Thou comest to my call serenely suave, With humming speech and gracious gestures grave, In salutation courtly and urbane : Yet must I humble me thy grace to gain For wiles may win thee, but no arts enslave, Where naught disturbs the concord of thy reign. Sphinx of my quiet hearth! who deignst to dwell, Friend of my toil, companion of mine ease, To a Cat Graham R. Tomson. STA I TATELY, kindly, lordly friend, Here to sit by me, and turn Glorious eyes that smile and burn, All your wondrous wealth of hair, Silken-shaggy, soft and bright Dogs may fawn on all and some You, a friend of loftier mind, Just your foot upon my hand Morning round this silent sweet Sheds its wealth of gathering light, Fair and dim they gleamed below: Deep as even your sun-bright eyes, Now that you give thanks to see? May you not rejoice as I, Change to heaven revealed, and bid All night long from stars and moon, Now the sun sets all in tune? What within you wakes with day, All too little may we tell, Friends who like each other well, What might haply, if we might Bid us read our lives aright. II Wild on woodland ways your sires Flashed like fires ; Fair as flame and fierce as fleet, Free and proud and glad as they, Rests or roams their radiant child, Free from curb of aught above Love through dreams of souls divine Round a dawn whose light and song Dreams were theirs; yet haply may Dawn a day When such friends and fellows born, May for wiser love's sake see More of heaven's deep heart than we. Algernon Charles Swinburne. |