[21] The thought contained in these lines, appears so natural and so
     obvious, that one wonders it did not occur to all who have attempted
     to write upon a birthday or a death.

TO A CAT

  Poor Puss is gone!  ’Tis fate’s decree—­
    Yet I must still her loss deplore,
  For dearer than a child was she,
    And ne’er shall I behold her more.

  With many a sad presaging tear
    This morn I saw her steal away,
  While she went on without a fear
    Except that she should miss her prey.

  I saw her to the dove-house climb,
    With cautious feet and slow she stept
  Resolv’d to balance loss of time
    By eating faster than she crept.

  Her subtle foes were on the watch,
    And mark’d her course, with fury fraught,
  And while she hoped the birds to catch,
    An arrow’s point the huntress caught.

  In fancy she had got them all,
    And drunk their blood and suck’d their breath;
  Alas! she only got a fall,
    And only drank the draught of death.

  Why, why was pigeons’ flesh so nice,
    That thoughtless cats should love it thus? 
  Hadst thou but liv’d on rats and mice,
    Thou hadst been living still, poor Puss.

  Curst be the taste, howe’er refined,
    That prompts us for such joys to wish,
  And curst the dainty where we find
    Destruction lurking in the dish.

Ibn Alalaf Alnaharwany.

AN EPIGRAM UPON EBN NAPHTA-WAH[22]

  By the former with ruin and death we are curst,
  In the latter we grieve for the ills of the first;
  And as for the whole, where together they meet,
  It’s a drunkard, a liar, a thief, and a cheat.

Mohammed Ben Zeid Almotakalam.

[22] Mohammed Ben Arfa, here called Naphta-Wah, was descended from a
     noble family in Khorasan.  He applied himself to study with
     indefatigable perseverance, and was a very voluminous author in
     several branches of literature, but he is chiefly distinguished as
     a grammarian.  He died in the year of the Hegira 323.

FIRE[23]

A Riddle.

  The loftiest cedars I can eat,
    Yet neither paunch nor mouth have I,
  I storm whene’er you give me meat,
    Whene’er you give me drink, I die.

[23] This composition seems a fit supplement to the preceding one;
     notwithstanding its absurdity, however.  It is inserted merely to
     show that this mode of trifling was not unknown to the Orientals. 
     It is taken from the Mostatraf, where a great number of similar
     productions on various subjects are preserved.

TO A LADY BLUSHING[24]