Classic Poem

Rosalind, largest of all my shecats, and a sturdy being, pugnacious, fearless,
early in the spring gave birth to four strong kittens — —
each one healthy from the moment of the first cry. Nita, her sister,
dainty, dependent, timid, but formerly the mother of enormous males, all warriors,
now gave birth to three sickly offspring of Ptolemaic mating — —
three born cold, only to whine for hours and expire.
Now while Rosalind was digging for a fieldmouse,
Nita and I abducted one of the four healthy kittens, one only,
and Nita gave it suck, muttering gladly to herself, or to me, or to all three concerned. Rosalind
apparently overlooked her loss, or accepted it without suspicion,
and at once went on with her nursing, after the fashion of masterful mothers.

But when her three were only eleven days old, their eyes barely opened,
she disappeared. In a few hours I began to wonder, to grow alarmed,
for through the yard there had passed a string of foxhounds bent on the chase — —
hounds that had never annoyed my cats, and yet were hounds. I went out.
I called her, called her many times. But Rosalind had roamed off, out of hearing, perchance to her death — —
old Rosalind who had roamed off all her life, and knew all things, and was masterful by nature. I feared for her.
For why should she now go forth to a distance, a kindly mother with litter but eleven days old? Next morning
I called her again, and many times. I scanned the sky for buzzards.
I thought of copperheads. I remembered the foxhounds.
I heard the kittens whining. I pitied them. I chloroformed them.
I went out to search for the mother, or for her corpse. I found her.

At the very end of our acres I found old Rosalind, not dead,
but lost in throes of second passion, and fawning upon a favorite lover.
I cried out — —
" Sinner, desperate sinner,
I am glad that you live to sin. Live long, and sin. "

I thought that she would forget her kittens, or had already forgotten them.
But at sunset she came back home as a mother, weary, disheveled, hungry — —
came back worriedly, uttering dulcet assurances, tardy assurances, but all genuine.
She ate hurriedly. She went to her basket. I heard her muttering, crying out.
She came confusedly to me. She grew savage, smelled the male cats, drove them from the house — —
cried out, called out, now hopefully, now despairfully. That night,
when I had gone to bed, she came to me again, lay down with me,
her back at my chest, snuggling there, her head smuggling at my throat. There,
with a sigh, she quieted, and for a while purred lowly
to the pressure of my hand, as I rubbed her aching dugs;
and there we lay together, two old hardened sinners,
each miserable in thoughts of sweet sin past or future. Just before I went to sleep,
I said to her, in a whisper — —
" Rosalind, I alone was the sinner — —
and never again shall I interfere with sin. "