The Sea-cat
E. J. Pratt
It’s not for us to understand
How life on earth began to be,
How forms that lived within the sea
Should leave the water for the land;
Or how—(Satan alone may trace
The dark enigma of this race)
When feline variants, so far
Removed as tabs and tigers are,
Preferred, when they had left the shore,
The jungle and the kitchen floor—
That this uncouth, primordial cat
Should keep his native habitat.
Yet here he was, and one might find
In crouch and slink and instant spring
Upon a living, moving thing,
The common genus of his kind.
But there were qualities which he
Derived not from his family tree.
No leopard, lynx or jaguar
Could match this cat from Zanzibar
For whiskers that from ear to chin
Ran round to decorate his grin.
And something wilder yet than that
Lay in the nature of this cat.
It’s said that mariners by night,
When near a dangerous coast-line, might
Recover bearings from the light
Of some strange thing that swam and gleamed;
A Salamander it might be,
They said, or Lucifer that streamed
His fiery passage through the sea.
But in this banquet place not one
Of all the revellers could fail
To solve the riddle when Tom spun
A vast ecliptic as his tail,
A fiery comet, and his fur
Electrified each banqueter.
So the three beldams there agreed
No alien could invade the hall
If one of such a fighting breed
Were placed upon the fortress wall;
For who, they asked, of mortal creatures
Could claim more fearful derivation
Than Tom with his Satanic features
And his spontaneous conflagration?
