/lit/ - Literature

>Years saw me still Acasto’s mansion grace,
>The gentlest, fondest of the tabby race;
>Before him frisking through the garden glade,
>Or at his feet in quiet slumber laid;
>Praised for my glossy back of zebra streak,
>And wreaths of jet encircling round my neck;
>Soft paws that ne’er extend the clawing nail,
>The snowy whisker and the sinuous tail;
>Now feeble age each glazing eyeball dims,
>And pain has stiffened these once supple limbs;
>Fate of eight lives the forfeit gasp obtains,
>And e’en the ninth creeps languid through my veins.
>Much sure of good the future has in store,
>When on my master’s hearth I bask no more,
>In those blest climes, where fishes oft forsake
>The winding river and the glassy lake;
>There, as our silent-footed race behold
>The crimson spots and fins of lucid gold,
>Venturing without the shielding waves to play,
>They gasp on shelving banks, our easy prey:
>While birds unwinged hop careless o’er the ground,
>And the plump mouse incessant trots around,
>Near wells of cream that mortals never skim,
>Warm marum creeping round their shallow brim;
>Where green valerian tufts, luxuriant spread,
>Cleanse the sleek hide and form the fragrant bed.
>Yet, stern dispenser of the final blow,
>Before thou lay’st an aged grimalkin low,
>Bend to her last request a gracious ear,
>Some days, some few short days, to linger here;
>So to the guardian of his tabby’s weal
>Shall softest purrs these tender truths reveal:
>‘Ne’er shall thy now expiring puss forget
>To thy kind care her long-enduring debt,
>Nor shall the joys that painless realms decree
>Efface the comforts once bestowed by thee;
>To countless mice thy chicken-bones preferred,
>Thy toast to golden fish and wingless bird;
>O’er marum borders and valerian bed
>Thy Selima shall bend her moping head,
>Sigh that no more she climbs, with grateful glee,
>Thy downy sofa and thy cradling knee;
>Nay, e’en at founts of cream shall sullen swear,
>Since thou, her more loved master, art not there.’
Anna Seward, ‘An Old Cat’s Dying Soliloquy’

I spent 830 euro bucks on books this month.

>>20192502
>doesn't understand there's a difference between a library and a books-i-have-read-brary