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87 pages, Hardcover
First published October 25, 1994
Kubla KatThe others weren't quite as fine, though I also recommend To a Vase, by Elisabeth Barrett Browning's cat, Abyssinias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley's cat and The Love Song of J. Morris Housecat, by T.S. Eliot's cat. The last of these, in particular, incorporates a fine quotation in 14th century cat Italian from Dante's cat:
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Cat
In Xanadu did Kubla Kat
A splendid sofa-bed decree
With silken cushions soft and fat
A perfect feline habitat
Set on a gilt settee.
And twice ten yards of fine brocade
The golden ottoman arrayed:
And there were pillows packed with airy down
Hand-plucked from sacred swans in Thessaly;
And lace draped from a massive silver crown
Adorned the ornate rosewood canopy.
And ah! that seat effused a potent lotion
Pressed from the leaves of rare hypnotic herbs
Sweet source of wondrous dreams that naught disturbs.
Oh magic mint! Sublime and blissful potion!
The fragrance of that place of slumber
Floated on the balmy breeze
Drawing kittens without number:
Persians, Manx, and Siamese.
It was a miracle of opulence,
A shining sofa-bed with catnip scents!
A songbird with a small guitar
In a vision I once did note:
It was a wise and winsome owl,
Sitting in a pea-green boat,
Singing a song to me,
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
We danced by the light of the moon.
And when I arose from my languorous swoon
I build that divine divan,
That cushy couch! that smell of spice!
And all who saw should stop and yawn,
And none would cry, Get Down! Begone!
The lights are dimmed, the curtains drawn.
Tiptoe round him, still as mice,
And let him catnap on his bed,
For he on catnip leaves has fed,
And lapped the milk of Paradise.
M'io muoiano muole miù
miei ma miogni noi parlamiaou
muoi m'uomi ne più
miolo muoiano mio siamiaou
I situate myself, and seat myself,
And where you recline I shall recline,
For every armchair belonging to you as good as belongs to me...
Walt Whitman's Cat