cat moon

THE CAT AND THE MOON

The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round
like a top,

And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared
at the moon,
For, wander and wail
as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.

Do you dance, Minna- loushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.

Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minna- loushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.

-- W. B. Yeats, in 1919