To Mrs. Reynolds's Cat

To Mrs. Reynolds's Cat (1818)
by John Keats

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Written on 16 January 1818. First published in 1830. The poem is a parody of Milton's style.

Cat! who hast past thy grand climacteric,
  How many mice and rats hast in thy days
  Destroy’d? – how many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green and prick
Those velvet ears – but prythee do not stick
  Thy latent talons in me – and upraise
  Thy gentle mew – and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists –
  For all the wheezy asthma – and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nicked off – and though the fists
  Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists
  In youth thou enter’dst on glass bottled wall.