Accompanies two torn cats' nightly yowling.

At two-ten sharp the parrot in the flat
Across the way his monologue essays.
At three, again, as Gilbert says, the cat;
At four a milkman's horse, exulted, neighs.
At six-fifteen, nor does it ever vary,
I hear the dulcet tones of a canary.

Each living thing I love; I love the birds;
The beasts in field and forest, too, I love,
But I have writ these poor, if metric words,
To query which, by all the pow'rs above,
Of all the animals--pray tell me, some one--
Is called by any courtesy a dumb one?



A Soft Susurrus


A soft susurrus in the night,
A song whose singer is unseen--
'Twere poetry itself to write
"A soft susurrus in the night!"
I know, as those mosquitos bite,
That I forgot to fix that screen,
"A soft susurrus in the night!"
A song whose singer is unseen.