“I cannot live—since doom’d, alas! to part

“From poor Grimalkin kind, the darling of my heart!”

And now Dame Gurton, bath’d in tears,

With a black top-knot vast, appears:

Some say that a black gown she wore,

As many oft have done before,

For Beings, valued less, I ween,

Than this, of Tabby Cats, the fav’rite Queen!

But lo! soon after, one fair day,

Puss, who had only been a roving—