John Keats | To Mrs Reynolds’ 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.