This snap is from our Chicago apartment in graduate school days. The kittens in the chair were rescued from a Chicago alley. Their names were Griddlebone and Jenny-Any-Dots. The black cat on the floor is my beloved Teufelsdröckh. (Very graduate student names, I know.)
A Dirge for a Righteous Kitten
To be intoned, all but the two italicized lines, which are to be spoken in a snappy, matter-of-fact way.
Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.
Here lies a kitten good, who kept
A kitten’s proper place.
He stole no pantry eatables,
Nor scratched the baby’s face.
He let the alley-cats alone.
He had no yowling vice.
His shirt was always laundried well,
He freed the house of mice.
Until his death he had not caused
His little mistress tears,
He wore his ribbon prettily,
He washed behind his ears.
Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.— Vachel Lindsay, Congo and Other Poems (1919)
