64450: A Child's Nightmare

<p dir="ltr"> Through long nursery nights he stood<br> By my bed unwearying,<br> Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,<br> Purring in my haunted ear<br> That same hideous nightmare thing,<br> Talking, as he lapped my blood,<br> In a voice cruel and flat,<br> Saying for ever, 'Cat!...Cat!...Cat!...'<br> That one word was all he said,<br> That one word through all my sleep,<br> In monotonous mock despair.<br> Nonsense may be light as air,<br> But there's Nonsense that can keep<br> Horror bristling round the head,<br> When a voice cruel and flat<br> Says for ever, 'Cat!...Cat!...Cat!...'<br> He had faded, he was gone<br> Years ago with Nursery Land,<br> When he leapt on me again<br> From the clank of a night train,<br> Overpowered me foot and hand,<br> Lapped my blood, while on and on<br> The old voice cruel and flat<br> Purred for ever, 'Cat!...Cat!...Cat!...'<br> Morphia drowsed, again I lay<br> In a crater by High Wood:<br> He was there with straddling legs,<br> Staring eyes as big as eggs,<br> Purring as he lapped my blood,<br> His black bulk darkening the day,<br> With a voice cruel and flat,<br> 'Cat!...Cat!...Cat!...' he said,<br> 'Cat!...Cat!...'<br> When I'm shot through heart and head,<br> And there's no choice but to die,<br> The last word I'll hear, no doubt,<br> Won't be 'Charge!' or 'Bomb them out!'<br> Nor the stretcher-bearer's cry,<br> 'Let that body be, he's dead!'<br> But a voice cruel and flat<br> Saying for ever, 'Cat!...Cat!...Cat!'</p>