Classic Poem

Ah! if ye ask, my friends, why this salt shower
My blubber'd eyes upon this paper pour?
Gone is my sparrow, he whom I did train,
And turn'd so toward, by a cat is slain.
No more with trembling wings shall he attend
His watchful mistress: would my life could end!
No more shall I him hear chirp pretty lays;
Have I not cause to loath my tedious days?
A Dedalus he was to catch a fly,
Nor wrath nor rancour men in him could spy;
To touch or wrong his tail if any dar'd,
He pinch'd their fingers, and against them war'd:
Then might that crest be seen shake up and down,
Which fixed was unto his little crown;
Like Hector's, Troy's strong bulwark, when in ire
He rag'd to set the Grecian fleet on fire.
But, ah, alas! a cat this prey espies,
Then with a leap did thus our joys surprise.
Undoubtedly this bird was kill'd by treason,
Or otherways had of that fiend had reason.
Thus was Achilles by weak Paris slain,
And stout Camilla fell by Aruns vain:
So that false horse, which Pallas rais'd 'gainst Troy,
King Priame and that city did destroy.
Thou now, whose heart is big with this frail glory,
Shalt not live long to tell thy honour's story.
If any knowledge resteth after death
In ghosts of birds, when they have left to breath,
My darling's ghost shall know in lower place,
The vengeance falling on the cattish race.
For never cat nor catling I shall find,
But mew shall they in Pluto's palace blind.
Ye who with gawdy wings and bodies light
Do dint the air, turn hitherwards your flight,
To my sad tears comply these notes of yours,
Unto his idol bring an harv'st of flowers;
Let him accept from us, as most divine,
Sabæan incense, milk, food, sweetest wine;
And on a stone let us these words engrave:
Pilgrim, the body of a sparrow brave
In a fierce gluttonous cat's womb clos'd remains,
Whose ghost now graceth the Elysian plains.