POETRY.
VALEDICTORY.
Foiewsti., friend Thomas: now you go the way Appointed unto cats as unto men: Those yellow eyes, that patch of fuzzy grey, Wo shall not see again.
You slow your thousands : did you over think Of some great Super-Cat, supernal, vast, That waits and waits and waits without a wink And gets you at the last ?
(I do not think you did, for you were not What I would call a philosophic cat, Bent rather on the Moment and the Spot Than abstract things like that.)
Of dispraise let no other word be said,
For well you kept the house against the Foe, Obedient to the pact our fathers made Ever so long ago.
But now the hunt is up: the careless mice Scamper unchallenged on the kitchen. floor, Making the most of that strange armistice They never knew before; And all your pleasant visions on the hearth (We watched your nostrils twitching as you lay
Are vanished with your little life on earth—
A dream no less than they.
That royal mien, that condescending air, The ancient wisdoms in your eye-balls' glow, We shall remember for a little while, And then we too shall go:
We too, who in our time chased paper balls.
Thinking them very kernels of the Truth: We too, who rent the air with caterwauls, (Especially in youth).
Farewell; a pleasant journey o'er the Styx; And when you reach the shores of Erebus, If Cerberus tries any of his tricks, There will be such a fuss! F. H.
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