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| Chinese Cat How many ages In lustrous mellow Of Chinese ancestry Anitiquity? In the fine pages In towers of jade Of your sleek history And minarets ashen Must there be, feline. With dawn, did and idol Tortuous mystery? Dream and fashion Skeins of the night that Your slithe and beautiful Silkened the sky Demoniacal Over dusty pagodas Movement of fur, Glimmering lie And the curded sound Down you long sides; Of your inward purr? And, thinner than water Where did he find Like water glides The gloomy, sunny Your bland shadow Spheres of your eyes Along the floor. Like globules of honey? How many cinnamon Under the velvet Blossoms bore Fall of your paws Delicate shade through Needles the light of your Nightingaled hours, Polished claws . . . In that remoter Were you a Favorite Life thaqt was yours Ages ago, Down by the yellow, Who purred at an Emperor's Asian sea. Overthrow? Martha Ostenso |
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| This Is My Chair This is my chair. Go away and sit somewhere else. This one is all my own. It is the only thing in your house that I possess. And insist upon possessing. Everything else therein is yours. My dish. My toys. My basket. My scratching post, and my Ping-Pong ball; You provided them for me. This chair I slected for myself I like it, It sutes me. You have the sofa. The stuffed chaif And the footstool. I don't go and sit on them do I? Then why cannot you leave me mine, And let us have no futher argument? Paul Gallico |
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| Cats in Ancient Egypt A very great number of Cats' mummies, discovered in Egypt, afford ample proof of the esteem in which Pussy was held in Tebes' streets three thousand years ago. If one died a natural death, it was mourned for with many ceremonies; among others, the entire household, where the death took place, shaved off their eyebrows. If killed, the murderer was given up to the mob to buffet him to death. Cats were held sacred when alive, and when they dided were embalmed and deposited in the niches of the catacombs. And insult offered by a Roman to a Cat once caused and insurrection among the Egyptians when nothing else would exite them. Cambyses gained Pelusis, which had previously successfully resisted all attacks, by the following stratagem: he gave to each of his soldiers employed in the attack a live Cat, instead of a buckler, and the Egyptians, rather than hurt the object of their veneration, suffered themselves to be vanquished with striking a blow. C. H. Ross |