Epigram On The Toasts Of The Kit-Cat Club, Anno 1716.

Whence deathless 'Kit-cat' took its name,
Few critics can unriddle:
Some say from 'pastrycook' it came,
And some, from 'cat' and 'fiddle.'

From no trim beaux its name it boasts,
Gray statesmen, or green wits;
But from this pell-mell pack of toasts
Of old 'cats' and young 'kits.'

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an English poet, best known for his satirical verse, including 'The Rape of the Lock' and 'The Dunciad'. He is the second-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations after Shakespeare. Pope was one of the greatest English poets and the foremost poet of the early 18th century. He also translated Homer. Despite suffering from numerous health problems, Pope made a significant impact on English literature and is remembered for his sharp wit and mastery of the heroic couplet.

Alexander Pope

The Iliad: Book VI (Excerpt)

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

Verses Left By Mr Pope. On His Lying In The Same Bed Which Wilmot, The Celebrated Earl Of Rochester, Slept In At Adderbury, Then Belonging To The Duke Of Argyll, July 9, 1739.

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

Sappho To Phaon (Ovid Heroid XV)

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

Imitations Of English Poets. Earl Of Rochester: On Silence.

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Epigram.

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.

Alexander Pope

Cat-Pie.

While he is mark'd by vision clear

Who fathoms Nature's treasures,
The man may follow, void of fear,

Who her proportions measures.

Though for one mortal, it is true,

These trades may both be fitted,
Yet, that the things themselves are two

Must always be admitted.

Once on a time there lived a cook

Whose skill was past disputing,
Who in his head a fancy took

To try his luck at shooting.

So, gun in hand, he sought a spot

Where stores of game were breeding,
And there ere long a cat he shot

That on young birds was feeding.

This cat he fancied was a hare,

Forming a judgment hasty,
So served it up for people's fare,

Well-spiced and in a pasty.

Yet many a gues...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Old Dame And Cats.

        He who holds friendship with a knave,
        Will reputation hardly save;
        And thus upon our choice of friends
        Our good or evil name depends.

        A wrinkled hag - of naughty fame -
        Sat hovering o'er a flickering flame,
        Propped with both hands upon her knees
        She shook with palsy and the breeze.
        She had perhaps seen fourscore years,
        And backwards said her daily prayers;
        Her troop of cats with hunger mewed, -
        Tabbies and toms, a numerous brood.
        Teased with their murmuring, out she flew
        In angry passion: "Hence, ye crew! -
        What made me take to keeping cats?
        Ye are as bad as bawling brats:
        With brats I might perhaps have grown rich;

John Gay

Book II. Satire VI. The First Part Imitated In The Year 1714, By Dr Swift; The Latter Part Added Afterwards.

I've often wish'd that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a-year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end,
A terrace-walk, and half a rood
Of land, set out to plant a wood.

Well, now I have all this and more,
I ask not to increase my store;
But here a grievance seems to lie,
All this is mine but till I die;
I can't but think 'twould sound more clever,
To me and to my heirs for ever.

If I ne'er got or lost a groat,
By any trick, or any fault;
And if I pray by reason's rules,
And not like forty other fools:
As thus, 'Vouchsafe, O gracious Maker!
To grant me this and t' other acre:
Or, if it be thy will and pleasure,
Direct my plough to find a treasure:'
But only what my station fits,
And to be ke...

Alexander Pope

Sorrow For A Favourite Tabby Cat, Who Left This Scene Of Troubles, Friday Night, Nov. 26, 1819.

Let brutish hearts, as hard as stones,
Mock The weak Muse's tender moans,
As now she wails o'er Titty's bones
With anguish deep;
Doubtless o'er parent's dying groans
They'd little weep.

Ah, Pity! thine's a tender heart,
Thy sigh soon heaves, thy tears soon start;
And thou hast given the muse her part
Salt tears to shed,
To mourn and sigh with sorrow's smart;
For pussy's dead.

Ah, mourning Memory! 'neath thy pall
Thou utterest many a piercing call,
Pickling in vinegar's sour gall
Ways that are fled--
The way, the feats, the tricks, and all,
Of pussy dead.

Thou tell'st of all the gamesome plays
That mark'd her happy kitten-days:
-Ah, I did love her funny way
On the sand floor;
But now sad sorrow damps my lays:

John Clare

Epilogue[177] To The Satires. In Two Dialogues.

(WRITTEN IN MDCCXXXVIII.)


DIALOGUE I.

Fr. Not twice a twelvemonth you appear in print,
And when it comes, the court see nothing in 't.
You grow correct, that once with rapture writ,
And are, besides, too moral for a wit.
Decay of parts, alas! we all must feel--
Why now, this moment, don't I see you steal?
'Tis all from Horace; Horace long before ye
Said, 'Tories call'd him Whig, and Whigs a Tory;'
And taught his Romans, in much better metre,
'To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter.'

But, Horace, sir, was delicate, was nice;
Bubo^[178] observes, he lash'd no sort of vice:
Horace would say, Sir Billy^[179] served the crown,
Blunt could do business, Huggins^[180] knew the town;
In Sappho touch the fail...

Alexander Pope