To Mrs Reynolds' Cat

Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric, How many mice and rats hast in thy days Destroy’d? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze With those bright languid segments green, and prick Those velvet ears - but pr’ythee do not stick Thy latent talons in me - and upraise Thy gentle mew - and tell me all thy frays, Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick. Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists - For all thy wheezy asthma - and for all Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off - and though the fists Of many a maid have given thee many a maul, Still is that fur as soft, as when the lists In youth thou enter’dest on glass bottled wall.