“Blissfully havened both from joy and pain,”
wrapped in soft, slumberous satisfaction, we are but vaguely conscious of the enchanted air we breathe, or of our own unutterable well-being. There is no English poem, save only “Christabel,” which can lead us like “The Eve of St. Agnes” straight to the ivory gates, and waft us gently from waking dreams to the mistier visions of sleep. But there are many English poets—Herrick, and Marvell, and Gray, and Cowper, and Tennyson—who have bedside verses for us all. Herrick, indeed, though breathing the freshness of morning, is a delightful companion for night. He calls us so distinctly and seductively to leave, as he did, the grievous cares of life; to close our ears to the penetrating voice of duty; to turn away our eyes from the black scaffold of King Charles; and to watch, with him, the blossoms shaken in the April wind, and the whitethorn of May time blooming on the hills, and the sheen of Julia’s robe, as she goes by with laughter. This is not a voice to sway us at broad noon, when we are striving painfully to do our little share of work; but Hesperus should bring some respite even to the dutiful, and in our dozy hours it is sweet to lay aside all labor, and keenness, and altruism. Adonis, says the old myth, fled from the amorous arms of Aphrodite to the cold Queen of Shadows who could promise him nothing but repose. Worn with passion, wearied of delight, he lay at the feet of Persephone, and bartered away youth, strength, and love for the waters of oblivion and the coveted blessing of sleep.
A KITTEN.
If
“The child is father of the man,”
why is not the kitten father of the cat? If in the little boy there lurks the infant likeness of all that manhood will complete, why does not the kitten betray some of the attributes common to the adult puss? A puppy is but a dog, plus high spirits, and minus common sense. We never hear our friends say they love puppies, but cannot bear dogs. A kitten is a thing apart; and many people who lack the discriminating enthusiasm for cats, who regard these beautiful beasts with aversion and mistrust, are won over easily, and cajoled out of their prejudices by the deceitful wiles of kittenhood.
“The little actor cons another part,”
and is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal. It makes a vast pretense of climbing the rounds of a chair, and swings by the curtain like an acrobat. It scrambles up a table leg, and is seized with comic horror at finding itself full two feet from the floor. If you hasten to its rescue, it clutches you nervously, its little heart thumping against its furry sides, while its soft paws expand and contract with agitation and relief;
“And all their harmless claws disclose,
Like prickles of an early rose.”
Yet the instant it is back on the carpet it feigns to be suspicious of your interference, peers at you out of “the tail o’ its ee,” and scampers for protection under the sofa, from which asylum it presently emerges with cautious trailing steps, as though encompassed by fearful dangers and alarms. Its baby innocence is yet unseared. The evil knowledge of uncanny things which is the dark inheritance of cathood has not yet shadowed its round infant eyes. Where did witches find the mysterious beasts that sat motionless by their fires, and watched unblinkingly the waxen manikins dwindling in the flame? They never reared these companions of their solitude, for no witch could have endured to see a kitten gamboling on her hearthstone. A witch’s kitten! That one preposterous thought proves how wide, how unfathomed, is the gap between feline infancy and age.