To a Cat by John Keats — Past Poetry archive

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 the wheezy asthma,⁠—and for all Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off⁠—and though the fists Of many a maid has given thee many a maul, Still is that fur as soft as when the lists In youth thou enter’dst on glass-bottled wall.