Classic Poem

FOUR-PAWS , the kitten from the farm,
Is come to live with Betsey-Jane,
Leaving the stack-yard for the warm
Flower-compassed cottage in the lane,
To wash his idle face and play
Among chintz cushions all the day.

Under the shadow of her hair
He lies, who loves him nor desists
To praise his whiskers and compare
The tabby bracelets on his wrists,—
Omelet at lunch and milk at tea
Suit Betsey-Jane and so fares he.

Happy beneath her golden hand
He purrs contentedly nor hears
His Mother mourning through the land,
The old gray cat with tattered ears
And humble tail and heavy paw
Who brought him up among the straw.

Never by day she ventures nigh,
But when the dusk grows dim and deep
And moths flit out of the strange sky
And Betsey has been long asleep—
Out of the dark she comes and brings
Her dark maternal offerings;—

Some field-mouse or a throstle caught
Near netted fruit or in the corn,
Or rat, for this her darling sought
In the old barn where he was born;
And all lest on his dainty bed
Four-paws were faint or under-fed.

Only between the twilight hours
Under the window-panes she walks
Shrewdly among the scented flowers
Nor snaps the soft nasturtium stalks,
Uttering still her plaintive cries
And Four-paws, from the house, replies,

Leaps from his cushion to the floor,
Down the brick passage scantly lit,
Waits wailing at the outer door
Till one arise and open it—
Then from the swinging lantern's light
Runs to his Mother in the night.