1
Shuffling along in her broken shoes from the slums,
A blue-eyed lady showing the weather's stain,
Her long dress green and black like a pine in the rain,
Her bonnet much bedraggled, daily she comes
Uphill past the Moreton Bays and the smoky gums
With a sack of bones on her back and a song in her brain
To feed those outlaws prowling about the Domain,
Those furtive she-cats and those villainous toms.
Proudly they step to meet her, they march together
With an arching of backs and a waving of plumy tails
And smiles that swear they never would harm a feather.
They rub at her legs for the bounty that never fails,
They think she is a princess out of a tower,
And so she is, she is trembling with love and power.
2
Meat, it is true, is meat, and demands attention
But this is the sweetest moment that they know
Whose courtship even is a hiss, a howl and a blow.
At so much kindness pa**ing their comprehension
– Beggars and rogues who never deserved this pension –
Some recollection of old punctilio
Dawns in their eyes, and as she moves to go
They turn their battered heads in condescension.
She smiles and walks back lightly to the slums.
If she has fed their bodies, they have fed
More than the body in her; they purr like drums,
Their tails are banners and fountains inside her head.
The times are hard for exiled aristocrats,
But gracious and sweet it is to be queen of the cats.