Classic Poem

P LA CE BO!
Who is there, who?
Di le xi!
Dame Margery.
Fa, re, my, my.
Wherefore and why, why?
For the soul of Philip Sparrow,
That was late slain at Carow,
Among the Nones Black.
For that sweet soules sake,
And for all sparrowes' souls
Set in our bede-rolls,
Pater noster qui,
With an Ave Mari ,
And with the corner of a Creed,
The more shall be your meed.

When I remember again
How my Philip was slain,
Never half the pain
Was between you twain,
Pyramus and Thisbe,
As then befell to me.
I wept and I wailed,
The tears down hailed,
But nothing it availed
To call Philip again,
Whom Gib, our cat, hath slain.
Gib, I say, our cat
Worrowed her on that
Which I loved best.
It cannot be exprest
My sorrowful heaviness,
But all without redress!
For within that stound,
Half slumbering, in a sound
I fell downe to the ground.
...

Would God I had Zenophontes,
Or Socrates the wise,
To shew me their device
Moderately to take
This sorrow that I make
For Philip Sparrow's sake!
So fervently I shake,
I feel my body quake;
So urgently I am brought
Into careful thought.
Like Andromach, Hector's wife,
Was weary of her life,
When she had lost her joy,
Noble Hector of Troy;
In like manner also
Increaseth my deadly woe,
For my sparrow is go.

It was so pretty a fool,
It would sit on a stool,
And learned after my school
For to keep his cut,
With " Philip, keep your cut!"

It had a velvet cap,
And would sit upon my lap,
And seek after small wormes,
And sometime white bread-crummes;
And many times and oft
Between my brestes soft
It would lie and rest;
It was proper and prest.

Sometime he would gasp
When he saw a wasp;
A fly or a gnat,
He would fly at that;
And prettily he would pant
When he saw an ant,
Lord, how he would pry
After the butterfly!
Lord, how he would hop
After the gressop!
And when I said, " Phip, Phip!"
Then he would leap and skip,
And take me by the lip.
Alas, it will me slo
That Philip is gone me fro!
...

That vengeance I ask and cry,
By way of exclamation,
On all the whole nation
Of Cattes wild and tame:
God send them sorrow and shame!
That Cat specially
That slew cruelly
My little pretty sparrow
That I brought up at Carow.

O cat of carlish kind,
The fiend was in thy mind
When thou my bird untwined!
I would thou hadst been blind!
The leopardes savage,
The lions in their rage
Might catch thee in their paws,
And gnaw thee in their jaws!
The serpents of Libany
Might sting thee venomously!
The dragons with their tongues
Might poison thy liver and lungs!
The manticors of the mountains
Might feed them on thy brains!

Melanchates, that hound
That plucked Actaeon to the ground,
Gave him his mortal wound,
Changed to a deer,
The story doth appear,
Was changed to an hart:
So thou, foul cat that thou art,
The selfsame hound
Might thee confound,
That his own lorde bote,
Might bite asunder thy throat!

Of Ind the greedy grypes
Might tear out all thy tripes!
Of Arcady the bears
Might pluck away thine ears!
The wild wolf Lycaon
Bite asunder thy backbone!
Of Etna the burning hill,
That day and night burneth still,
Set in thy tail a blaze
That all the world may gaze
And wonder upon thee,
From Ocean the great sea
Unto the Isles of Orcady,
From Tilbury Ferry
To the plain of Salisbury!
So traitorously my bird to kill
That never ought thee evil will!

Was never bird in cage
More gentle of corage
In doing his homage
Unto his soveraine.
Alas, I say again,
Death hath departed us twain!
The false cat hath thee slain:
Farewell, Philip, adew!
Our Lord, thy soul rescue!
Farewell, without restore,
Farewell, for evermore!