Part 2 — CXLIV

When I remember'd again How my Philip was slain, I wept and I wailed, The tears down hailed; But nothing it avail'd To call Philip again Whom Gib our cat hath slain. Heu, heu, me, That I am woe for thee! Levavi oculos meos in montis; Would that I had Xenophontis Or Socrates the Wise, To show me their device Moderately to take This sorrow that I make For Philip Sparrow's sake! It had a velvet cap, And would sit on my lap, And seek after small worms, And sometimes white bread crumbs; And many times and oft Within my breast soft It would lie and rest. Sometimes he would gasp When he saw a wasp; A fly or a gnat, He would fly at that; And prettily he would pant When he saw an ant; Lord, how he would pry After the butterfly! Lord, how he would hop After the grasshop! And when I said, Phip, Phip, Then he would leap and skip, And take me by the lip. De profundis clamavi When I saw my sparrow die. Vengeance I ask and cry, By way of exclamation, On all the whole nation Of cats wild and tame; That cat especially That slew so cruelly My little pretty sparrow That I brought up at Carow. O cat of churlish kind, The fiend was in thy mind. I would thou hadst been blind! The leopards savage, The lions in their rage, May they catch thee in their paws, And gnaw thee in their jaws; The dragons with their tongues May they poison thy liver and lungs. Of India the greedy gripes May they tear out all thy tripes; Of Arcady the bears May they pluck away thine ears; The wild wolf Lycaon Bite asunder thy back-bone; Of Ætna the burning hill, That night and day burneth still, Set thy tail in a blaze, That all the world may gaze And wonder upon thee, From Ocean, the great sea, Unto the Isles of Orchadye; From Tilbury Ferry To the plain of Salisbury.