SONNET CCCI.

To My Five New Kittens.

Soft little beasts, how pleasantly ye lie

Snuggling and snoozling by your purring sire,

Mother I mean (but sonnet-rhymes require

A shorter word, and boldly I defy

Those who would tie the bard by pedant rule).

O kittens, you're not thinking, I'll be bound,

How three of you had yesterday been drowned

But that my little boy came home from school,

And begged your lives, though Cook remonstrance made,

Declaring we were overrun with cats,

That licked her cream-dish and her butter-pats,

But childhood's pleadings won me, and I said—

'O Cook, we'll keep the innocents alive;

They're five, consider, and you've fingers five.'