E.J. Pratt (1882-1964)

The Prize Cat

1937

 Pure blood domestic, guaranteed,
 Soft-mannered, musical in purr,
 The ribbon had declared the breed,
 Gentility was in the fur
 
 Such feline culture in the gads
 No anger ever arched her back--
 What distance since those velvet pads
 Departed from the leopard's track!
 
 And when I mused how Time had thinned
 The jungle strains within the cells,
 How human hands had disciplined
 Thoes prowling optic parallels;
 
 I saw the generations pass
 Along the reflex of a spring,
 A bird had rustled in the grass,
 The tab had caught it on the wing:
 
 Behind the leap so furtive-wild
 Was such ignition in the gleam,
 I thought an Abyssinian child
 Had cried out in the whitethroat's scream.