hem all agog,
But what has become of the cat-a-log?

Henry Hudson, the master sage,
Writ large his name on history's page,
But you, you too, were a purr-sonage.

Shall the tale slight you, whose tail was a-quiver
As you and Hudson sailed up the river
Made only his by Time the giver?

Why did you take to adventuring,
Puss-illanimous fireside thing?
What was the cargo you hoped to bring?

Did you dream of multitudinous mice
Running about the Isles of Spice
In a paradoxical Paradise?

Were you not homesick where monsters swam,
Dolorous dolphin and clamorous clam,
For your sunny stoop in Amsterdam?

Months at sea, while the billows roared,
And the Milky Way not a cupful poured;
No wonder Tabby looked over-bored.

You had your feelin's, as felines go,
Poor little puss. What scared you so?
O stupid sailors that didn't know!

Was it a dogfish struck the spark
From your sea-green eyes with the quaint remark
That you were sailing upon a bark?

Millions of happy pussies fall
Into oblivion; still you call
From the top of your ancient cater-wall,

Call on the centuries to concur
In praise of Tabby the Mariner,
Who discovered the Catskills, named for her.

CATASTROPHES

"And when Maeldune and his men went into the best of the houses
they saw no one in it but a little cat that was in the middle of
the house, and it playing about on the four stone pillars that were
there, and leaping from one to another. It looked at the men for a
short space, but it did not stop from its play."

--Lady Gregory's _Book of Saints and Wonders_.

People are people, and cats are cats. We do not know our pussies. We
pet them but we cannot tame them. Landor's Cincirollo,

"wagging his dread jaw at every chirp
Of bird above him on the olive branch,"

is latent in Wordsworth's

"kitten on the wall
Sporting with the leaves that fall."

These charming fireside tenants of ours have their own concerns, which
lie aloof from the human. Even nursery-lore bears witness to this:

"'Pussy-cat, Pussy-cat,
Where have you been?'
'I've been to London,
To see the Queen.'
'Pussy-cat, Pussy-cat,
What did you there?'
'I frightened a little mouse
Under her chair.'"

But if we cannot forego the consciousne