For the Love of Animals

*** The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged

by the way its animals are treated. Mahatma Gandhi ***

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Tiger, Tiger burning bright/In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies/ Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?/ What the hand dare seize the fire?

“The Tiger”--William Blake

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Wee sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,

O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi’ bickerin’ brattle!

“To a Mouse”—Robert Burns

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Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.

~~ Mark Twain

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The poet T.S. Eliot wrote Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, the basis for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1981 musical CATS. The poems were written for his godchildren, only later collected in a book. (Eliot is the Old Possum here, a man who clearly knows and loves cats.) This small volume is a treasure.

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The Cat. He walked by himself and all places were alike to him.

…He went back through the Wet Wild Woods, waving his wild tail, and walking by his wild lone. But he never told anybody.

Rudyard Kipling, “The Cat that Walked by Himself”