  Four-paws, we know the sun is white At dawn in Hampshire when the night Deserts those frozen miles, When robin creaks from wintry bush And early milk-boy’s breeches brush The hoar-frost from the stiles; Yet shall you never hear him more Insistent at our cottage door Nor of his spoils partake, Alas, poor puss who stir and yawn Uneasy in the London dawn And, in a flat, awake. Four-paws, forgive us! When apprised Of our departure you devised, No doubt, some darling plan Of exodus that should surpass His who removed last Michaelmas— Your friend the dairy-man:— A mightier waggon on the road You pictured and so vast a load That all should turn and look,— Betsey precarious on the shaft, Master and Mistress fore and aft, The carter and the cook, Nurse, with her knitting, in mid-air, Carpets in bales, your favourite chair And (the progressive path With added glory to invest) Our Four-paws couchant on the crest Of an inverted bath. Alas, what difference disgraced Our flight! An obscure van replaced The customary wain; And you, with many a mournful cry, Fettered by Betsey in the fly And hampered in the train. And now you’re here. Well, it may be The sun does rise in Battersea Although to-day be dark, Life is not shorn of loves and hates While there are sparrows on the slates And keepers in the Park: And you yourself will come to learn The ways of London and in turn Assume your cockney cares, Like other folk who live in flats, Chasing your purely abstract rats Upon the concrete stairs. |
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