Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/313

 Rh

Shone and sprang your mother, free

Bright and brave as wind or sea.

"Free and proud and glad as they,

Here to-day

Rests or roams their radiant child,

Vanquished not, but reconciled;

Free from curb of aught above,

Save the lovely curb of love.

"Dogs may fawn on all and some,

As they come:

You, a friend of loftier mind,

Answer friends alone in kind.

Just your foot upon my hand

Softly bids it understand."

For arrogance of spirit this is unsurpassed, even in Saxon verse. Poets are never weary of comparing the dog and the cat, and censuring one or the other for not possessing its rival's traits; but contrast Mr. Swinburne's sublime assurance with the diffidence of M. Lemaître, who recognizes in his cat—the host of his quiet house—an exquisite mingling of irony and benignity, of attachment and contempt.

This is the Latin point of view, and sufficiently explains the love of a Frenchman for his cat. He