Yesterday I went and bought a book of Keats, since he is following me, and was particularly struck by his poem “To a cat.”
Why?
Because as near as I can figure, it’s a poem about Xander (or, as Kid #2 calls him, Mister Doctor Alexander).
Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand cliacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d? – How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears – but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me – and upraise
Thy gentle mew – and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists -
For all the wheezy asthma, – and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off – and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a mail,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists
In youth thou enter’dst on glass bottled wall.
Xander is much like this in personality, but also he is asthmatic and missing the tip of his tail.
Overall I thought this explained a lot.
More about Keats, and why I think he’s following me, later.
