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LETTING THE OLD CAT DIE.
Not long ago, I wandered near
A play-ground in the wood,
And there heard a thing from youthful lips
That I've never understood:
"Now let the old cat die!" he laughed;
I saw him give a push,
Then gayly scamper away as he spied
My face peep over the bush.
But what he pushed, or where it went,
I could not well make out,
On account of the thicket of bending boughs
That bordered the place about.
"The little villain has stoned a cat,
Or hung it upon a limb,
And left it to die all alone," I said;
"But I'll play the mischief with him."
I forced my way between the boughs,
The poor old cat to seek,
And what did I find but a swinging child,
With her bright hair brushing her cheek.
Her bright hair floated to and fro,
Her red little dress flashed by,
But the liveliest thing of all, I thought,
Was the gleam of her laughing eye.
Swinging and swaying back and forth,
With the rose-light in her face,
She seemed like a bird and a flower in one,
And the wood her native place.
"Steady! I'll send you up, my child,"
But she stopped me with a cry:
"Go 'way! go 'way! Don't touch me, please—
I'm letting the old cat die!"
"You, letting him die?" I cried, aghast;
"Why, where is the cat, my dear?"
And lo! the laughter that filled the woods
Was a thing for the birds to hear.
"Why, don't you know," said the little maid,
The flitting, beautiful elf,
"That we call it 'letting the old cat die'
When the swing stops all itself?"
Then floating and swinging, and looking back
With merriment in her eye,
She bade me "good-day," and I left her alone,
A-letting the old cat die.
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