<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><h3 class="cat-poem-title" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 24px; font-size: 1.125rem; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">To a Cat</h3><p class="excerpttext" style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">by Algernon Swinburne</span></p><p class="excerpttext" style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Stately, kindly, lordly friend,<br><span class="indent-single"><span style="display: inline-block;">Condescend</span></span><br>Here to sit by me, and turn<br>Glorious eyes that smile and burn,<br>Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed,<br>On the golden page I read.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">All your wondrous wealth of hair,<br><span class="indent-single"><span style="display: inline-block;">Dark and fair,</span></span><br>Silken-shaggy, soft and bright<br>As the clouds and beams of night,<br>Pays my reverent hand's caress<br>Back with friendlier gentleness.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Dogs may fawn on all and some<br><span class="indent-single"><span style="display: inline-block;">As they come;</span></span><br>You, a friend of loftier mind,<br>Answer friends alone in kind.<br>Just your foot upon my hand<br>Softly bids it understand.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Morning round this silent sweet<br><span class="indent-single"><span style="display: inline-block;">Garden-seat</span></span><br>Sheds its wealth of gathering light,<br>Thrills the gradual clouds with might,<br>Changes woodland, orchard, heath,<br>Lawn, and garden there beneath.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Fair and dim they gleamed below:<br><span class="indent-single"><span style="display: inline-block;">Now they glow</span></span><br>Deep as even your sunbright eyes,<br>Fair as even the wakening skies.<br>Can it not or can it be<br>Now that you give thanks to see?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">May not you rejoice as I,<br><span class="indent-single"><span style="display: inline-block;">Seeing the sky</span></span><br>Change to heaven revealed, and bid<br>Earth reveal the heaven it hid<br>All night long from stars and moon,<br>Now the sun sets all in tune?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">What within you wakes with day<br><span class="indent-single"><span style="display: inline-block;">Who can say?</span></span><br>All too little may we tell,<br>Friends who like each other well,<br>What might haply, if we might,<br>Bid us read our lives aright.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal;"><span class="poem-numeral"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">II</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br>Wild on woodland ways your sires<br><span class="indent-single"><span style="display: inline-block;">Flashed like fires:</span></span><br>Fair as flame and fierce and fleet<br>As with wings on wingless feet<br>Shone and sprang your mother, free,<br>Bright and brave as wind or sea.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Free and proud and glad as they,<br><span class="indent-single"><span style="display: inline-block;">Here to-day</span></span><br>Rests or roams their radiant child,<br>Vanquished not, but reconciled,<br>Free from curb of aught above<br>Save the lovely curb of love.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Love through dreams of souls divine<br><span class="indent-single"><span style="display: inline-block;">Fain would shine</span></span><br>Round a dawn whose light and song<br>Then should right our mutual wrong —<br>Speak, and seal the love-lit law<br>Sweet Assisi's seer foresaw.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 11.25pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Dreams were theirs; yet haply may<br><span class="indent-single"><span style="display: inline-block;">Dawn a day</span></span><br>When such friends and fellows born,<br>Seeing our earth as fair at morn,<br>May for wiser love's sake see<br>More of heaven's deep heart than we.</span></p></div>—————————————————<br><br><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">http://www.MoscowCares.net</span></div><div><br></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div><br></div><div>“A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met.”</div><div>- Roy E. Stolworthy</div><div></div></div></div></body></html>