Tuesday Poem: For I will consider my cat Jeoffry

For I will consider my cat Jeoffry

by Christopher Smart

For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in
his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant
quickness.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For he purrs in thankfulness when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him, and a blessing is lacking in
the spirit.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.






As a cat-lover and grandmother of three kittens I thought this unusual poem was very suitable this week.   Christopher Smart was born in 1722.  He wrote under the wonderful pen names of  Mrs Mary Midnight (a midwife) and Ebenezer Pentweazle.  One of his poems is the mock epic The Hiliad.   But apparently he began to have religious delusions - believing himself to be a prophet.  His relatives (some say it was his father-in-law) committed him to St Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics suffering from “religious mania” . The confinement was considered controversial and attracted the attention of Dr. Johnson.  In Boswell's Life of Johnson,  he records this conversation between Johnson and Fanny Burney. 
 
BURNEY. “How does poor Smart do, Sir; is he likely to recover?”
JOHNSON. “It seems as if his mind had ceased to struggle with the disease; for he grows fat upon it.”
BURNEY. “Perhaps, Sir, that may be from want of exercise.”
JOHNSON. “No, Madam; he has partly as much exercise as he used to have, for he digs in the garden. Indeed, before his confinement, he used for exercise to walk to the ale-house ; but he was carried back again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities, were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I’d as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.”
'For I will consider my cat Jeoffry'  is one of the poems that Christopher Smart wrote there and it's a fragment of a much longer piece called 'Jubilate Agno'.  Even after his release from the asylum his troubles weren't over and he ended his days in a debtor's prison.

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