YOU blame me, dear friend, for admiring of cats,
Which (except for destroying of mice and of rats)
You say is a creature you cannot abide,
That it is the opinion of hundreds beside.
The beast is ungrateful, you scornfully add,
And what is ungrateful must surely be bad;
And well is it known, that amongst the cat kind,
No symptom of reason illumines the mind.
And next you assure me, which truth you will prove,
That a scratch or a bite’s the return for my love.
All this I acknowledge, good reasoning elf,
But say, can much better be said of yourself?
Since thro’ the whole course of creation’s vast plan,
What creature exists so ungrateful as man?
I know my cat’s failings, yet these I excuse,
For her beauty I like, and her gambols amuse:
But the wand’ring caprice of man’s fickle mind,
Can friendship, can love, can compassion e’er bind?
Of scratches and bites, how transient the smart,
To what man, cruel man, can inflict on the heart;
When regardless of gentle humanity’s ties,
From the victim he’s made, he unfeelingly flies.
What cat more ungrateful, I beg you to say,
Tho’ she murders her victim, she does it in play.
Yet such is the goodness with which we abound,
And such the soft kindness in females that’s found,
So gentle in mind, to forgiveness so prone,
We excuse all your faults, as we pardon our own.
And tho’ we of man shocking instances prove,
And know you ungrateful, yet still women love:
Like me with my cat, when I say the poor creature,
Only follows exactly the best of its nature.
(Caroline Maxwell)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Man Poems, Mind Poems, Nature Poems, Friendship Poems, Pleasure Poems, Reasoning Poems, Good & Evil Poems, Planning Poems, Cats Poems, Excuse PoemsBased on Keywords: scornfully, gambols, illumines, reasoning, inflict, instances, symptom, unfeelingly