_THE NUN'S LAMENT FOR PHILIP SPARROW_
When I remember'd again
How my Philip was slain,
I wept and I wailed,
The tears down hailed;
But nothing it avail'd
To call Philip again
Whom Gib our cat hath slain.
_Heu, heu, me,_
That I am woe for thee!
_Levavi oculos meos in montis;_
Would that I had Xenophontis
Or Socrates the Wise,
To show me their device
Moderately to take
This sorrow that I make
For Philip Sparrow's sake!
It had a velvet cap,
And would sit on my lap,
And seek after small worms,
And sometimes white bread crumbs;
And many times and oft
Within my breast soft
It would lie and rest.
Sometimes he would gasp
When he saw a wasp;
A fly or a gnat,
He would fly at that;
And prettily he would pant
When he saw an ant;
Lord, how he would pry
After the butterfly!
Lord, how he would hop
After the grasshop!
And when I said, Phip, Phip,
Then he would leap and skip,
And take me by the lip.
_De profundis clamavi_
When I saw my sparrow die.
Vengeance I ask and cry,
By way of exclamation,
On all the whole nation
Of cats wild and tame;
That cat especially
That slew so cruelly
My little pretty sparrow
That I brought up at Carow.
O cat of churlish kind,
The fiend was in thy mind.
I would thou hadst been blind!
The leopards savage,
The lions in their rage,
May they catch thee in their paws,
And gnaw thee in their jaws;
The dragons with their tongues
May they poison thy liver and lungs.
Of India the greedy gripes
May they tear out all thy tripes;
Of Arcady the bears
May they pluck away thine ears;
The wild wolf Lycaon
Bite asunder thy back-bone;
Of AEtna the burning hill,
That night and day burneth still,
Set thy tail in a blaze,
That all the world may gaze
And wonder upon thee,
From Ocean, the great sea,
Unto the Isles of Orchadye;
From Tilbury Ferry
To the plain of Salisbury.
_J. Skelton_