10 JULY 1953, Page 15

Cat Beside the Shoe-box

A careful aesthetic might have made of this A catand shoe-box composition, purred And arched his back and thrilled in empathies.

But Smart, ebullient lunatic, would bless The compact pretty attitude, as boon And token of a cosmic happiness.

My cat's no blessed Geoffrey, nor am I The pyknic zany to her innocence : A cruel purrs, she lets her kittens die.

And yet forgo aesthetic distances : Unwinking eyes say man and cat in this Guilt of the creature are accomplices.

DONALD DAVIE.