cat

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.

The reivers they stole Fair Annie,
   As she walk'd by the sea;
But a noble knight was her ransom soon,
   Wi' gowd and white monie.

She bided in strangers' land wi' him,
   And none knew whence she cam;
She lived in the castle wi' her love,
   But never told her name.

'It 's narrow, narrow, mak your bed,
   And learn to lie your lane;
For I'm gaun owre the sea, Fair Annie,
   A braw Bride to bring hame.
Wi' her I will get gowd and gear,
   Wi' you I ne'er gat nane.

Some years ago, ere time and taste
Had turned our parish topsy-turvy,
When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste,
And roads as little known as scurvy,
The man who lost his way, between
St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket,
Was always shown across the green,
And guided to the Parson's wicket.

Back flew the bolt of lissom lath;
Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle,
Led the lorn traveller up the path,
Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle;

Padre... -- Dite il confiteor. -- L'ho detto. --
L'atto di contrizione? -- Già l'ho ffatto. --
Avanti dunque. -- Ho detto cazzo-matto
A mi' marito, e j'ho arzato un grossetto. --

Poi? -- Pe una pila che me róppe er gatto
Je disse for de me: "Si' maledetto";
E è cratura de Dio! -- C'e altro? -- Tratto
Un giuvenotto, e ce sò ita a letto. --

E lì cosa è successo? -- Un po' de tutto.--
Cioè? Sempre, m'immagino, pel dritto. --
Puro a riverzo... -- Oh che peccato brutto!

Since you, Mr. H**d, will marry black Kate,
Accept of good wishes for that blessed state:
May you fight all the day like a dog and a cat,
And yet ev'ry year produce a new brat.
Fal la!

May she never be honest -- you never be sound;
May her tongue like a clapper be heard a mile round;
Till abandon'd by joy, and deserted by grace,
You hang yourselves both in the very same place.
Fal la!

As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,
As that which from chafed musk-cats' pores doth trill,
As the almighty balm of th' early East,
Such are the sweat drops of my mistress' breast,
And on her brow her skin such lustre sets,
They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets.
Rank sweaty froth thy Mistress's brow defiles,
Like spermatic issue of ripe menstruous boils,
Or like the scum, which, by need's lawless law
Enforced, Sanserra's starved men did draw
From parboiled shoes and boots, and all the rest

There is a shattered palm
on this fierce shore,
its plumes the rusting helm-
et of a dead warrior.

Numb Antony, in the torpor
stretching her inert
sex near him like a sleeping cat,
knows his heart is the real desert.

Over the dunes
of her heaving,
to his heart's drumming
fades the mirage of the legions,

across love-tousled sheets,
the triremes fading.
Ar the carved door of her temple
a fly wrings its message.

He brushes a damp hair
away from an ear

(To E.M., Who drew them in Holzminden Prison)

I

From troubles of the world I turn to ducks,
Beautiful comical things
Sleeping or curled
Their heads beneath white wings
By water cool,
Or finding curious things
To eat in various mucks
Beneath the pool,
Tails uppermost, or waddling
Sailor-like on the shores
Of ponds, or paddling
- Left! Right! - with fanlike feet
Which are for steady oars
When they (white galleys) float
Each bird a boat
Rippling at will the sweet

At evening watches the duck
slow feeding the waterline.

Praises the duck. Such a fine
white miracle breasting the mayfly.

Green of her tail feathers,
space of her neck doubled in water
paddles off with my mind.

Ducks I have known.
Old duck mates of mine
inspecting the meeting of air and liquid.

Make no mistake, duck.
I´d like to eat you well cooked
one bell-battered Sunday in April.

And I´d wear your gorgeous feathers in my hat,
make a soup of the bones