Page:Poems Whitney.djvu/146

She had no kin to stay her breath;
As lonely traveller hasteneth,
She swam for life the moat of death.

All musings of the fireside born,
All love, all fear of hate and scorn,
The rose of life and its sharp thorn,

These have exhaled; in dumbest show
'Twas willed the curious life should blow,
And, having blossomed, should pass so.

Ah, not unkindly does the grave
Shut out earth's sunlight, if it have
The power to ripen and to save,

But you, O cat of many years,
When the inevitable shears
Cut off your thread of hopes and fears,