Companions

I am, as the saying goes, "a dog person."  But I have been extremely fond of quite a few cats in my time.  For instance, there is George, the orange cat who lives down the block.  Three or four evenings a week he strolls through the back garden at around seven o'clock, feigning (or is he feigning?) indifference.  If his presence is not noticed and acknowledged, he will quietly sit outside the French doors, staring inside, until he is duly greeted for the evening.  After a brief conversation, he will go his way, leaving no promises in his wake.

Thus, it is not an either/or matter for me.  I am unashamedly sentimental about the dogs and cats I have known.  Anthropomorphism bothers me not when it comes to these wonderful beings.  And I am perplexed by, and wary of, anyone who expresses indifference to them.

As W. H. Auden suggests, each occupies a distinctive place in our lives.

Dog    The single creature leads a partial life,
            Man by his mind, and by his nose the hound;
            He needs the deep emotions I can give,
            I scent in him a vaster hunting ground.

Cats    Like calls to like, to share is to relieve  
            And sympathy the root bears love the flower;
            He feels in us, and we in him perceive
            A common passion for the lonely hour.

Cats    We move in our apartness and our pride
            About the decent dwellings he has made:
Dog    In all his walks I follow at his side,
            His faithful servant and his loving shade.

W. H. Auden, Poem V in "Ten Songs," Collected Poems (Random House 1976).  The poem is untitled.  It was written in 1939.

Duncan Grant, "Girl at the Piano" (1940)

The contemplative detachment of cats is one of their attractive characteristics.  Again, whether this is feigned or not, I am not able to say. While dogs are certainly capable of contemplation, detachment is not one of their strong suits.

Imagine the word "dog" substituted for "cat" in the following haiku.  It just doesn't feel right.

     The peony;
A silver cat;
     A golden butterfly.

Buson (1716-1784) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Volume 3: Summer-Autumn (Hokuseido Press 1952), page 295.

Likewise, a dog wouldn't fit in a tableau such as this.

     The Cat and the Sea

It is a matter of a black cat
On a bare cliff top in March
Whose eyes anticipate
The gorse petals;

The formal equation of
A domestic purr
With the cold interiors
Of the sea's mirror.

R. S. Thomas, Poetry for Supper (Rupert Hart-Davis 1958).

Philip Connard (1875-1958), "Jane, Evelyn, James and Helen" (1913)

There comes a time in each of our lives when we turn to our faithful companion, feline or canine, and say something along the lines of:  "Well, at least you love me."  Or:  "Well, at least you understand me."  And your companion will look directly into your eyes and say, wordlessly:  "Of course I do."

     The Cat Says --

The Cat says,
And so say I,
Love is a winter fire,
And a summer lawn.
Love is a sharp claw,
Love is a pricked ear,
Love is a strong wind blowing at night
And a light sleep without fear.

I say,
And the Cat says too,
Love is a warm plumage
And a scented wine.
Love is a mackerel sky,
Love is the moon in a well,
Love is a feather the midnight owl lets fall,
And all oceans in a shell.

Sylvia Townsend Warner, New Collected Poems (edited by Claire Harman) (Fyfield Books/Carcanet 2008).

Some among us may find this sort of thing preposterous, sentimental, childlike.  Not I.  I suppose one's views depend upon how many dogs and cats one has been acquainted with.  I'm reminded of something that Arthur Symons wrote about his dog Api:  "It is enough to say that the eyes would be human, if human beings could concentrate so much of themselves into their eyes."

John Aldridge (1905-1983), "Lady with Cat"

This last part is difficult, for the memories of past companions come rushing.  "At first we seek to forget sorrow, to drown it in noise or oblivion; but gradually it comes back and takes hold of us and becomes our guest. Unbidden, we accept it, and recollection sits down with it by our hearth, an old friend."  Arthur Symons, "For Api," Collected Works, Poems: Volume Three (1924).

Yes, so one hopes, but still . . .

     Parting from a Cat

Whoever says farewell,
Has, for acquaintance, Death:
Small death, maybe, but still
Of all things dreaded most.
Yesterday I lost
An old, exacting friend
Who for ten years had haunted
My labours like a ghost,
Making my days enchanted
With feline airs and fancies.
Time, no doubt, will send
Some solace; and I know
Memory enhances
The half-companionship
Which is the most that can
Exist between cat and man.
But even so, I mourn
With a miniature grief
That won't relax its grip
Whichever way I turn,
Seeking to forget
My unimportant pet,
And that all life is brief.

Richard Church, The Inheritors: Poems 1948-1955 (Heinemann 1957).

Edward Bawden, "Roses and Rue" (1986)

Two Further Variations On A Theme

I have remarked previously that I don't mind circling back on my tracks. Thus, I beg the pardon of any loyal (and, of course, greatly appreciated) readers for retracing my steps to the following two poems, which have appeared here before.  The theme of love (love with a somewhat melancholy cast, I admit) brought them to mind, and I believe that they go well with Elizabeth Jennings's "Delay" and Richard Church's "Be Frugal."

                      Love Without Hope

Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher
Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter,
So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly
Singing about her head, as she rode by.

Robert Graves, The Welchman's Hose (1925).

It is quite an accomplishment to express so much about love in a four-line poem:  joy, exaltation, giddiness, longing, despair, and loss (and whatever else you might think of) all rolled into one.  I never tire of this poem.

                                    Paul Nash, "Nest of the Siren" (1930)

                          To Not Love

One looked at life in the prince style, shunning pain.
Now one has seen too much not to fear more.
Apprehensive, it seems, for all one loves,
One asks only to not love, to not love.

James Reeves, Subsong (1969).

"To Not Love" may be too bleak for some.  I avoid biographical "explanations" of poems.  However, it may (I emphasize may) be helpful to know that James Reeves's wife Mary died in 1966 at the age of 56 after a long illness.  Notice the effort to maintain distance and control by the use of "one" in each line of the poem.  (In contrast, Reeves uses "I" for the speaker in many of the other poems collected in Subsong.)  Then notice how the distance and the control seem to dissolve with the revealing repetition in the final line:  "One asks only to not love, to not love."

                                   Paul Nash, "Lupins and Cactus" (1927)

"Be Frugal In The Gift Of Love"

One of the nice things about poetry is that one thing leads to another. Elizabeth Jennings's poem "Delay" ends with this lovely line:  "And love arrived may find us somewhere else."  I had been thinking about the line over the past couple of days.  And then the following poem by Richard Church (1893-1972) arrived out of the past.

                  Be Frugal  

Be frugal in the gift of love,

Lest you should kindle in return

Love like your own, that may survive

Long after yours has ceased to burn.

For in life's later years you may

Meet with the ghost of what you woke

And shattered at a second stroke.

God help you on that fatal day.

Richard Church, The Solitary Man (1941).

In mid-20th century England, Richard Church was what used to be called "a man of letters."  He and his work are now mostly forgotten, I fear.  I have spent some time with his poetry over the years, and there are several quiet, fine poems like "Be Frugal" to be found there.  I am not suggesting that his work should displace that of the "Major Poets."  However, I now find that it is individual poems, not poets, that are most important to me.  I first read "Be Frugal" perhaps 20 (or is it 30?) years ago.  Now it unaccountably returns and delights me once again.

                                   Ethelbert White, "Early Spring" (1919)