While upon a leaf you tread, Or repose your little head, On your sheet of shadows laid, All the day you nothing said: Half the night your cheery tongue Revell'd out its little song, Nothing else but Caty-did.
From your lodgings on the leaf Did you utter joy or grief--? Did you only mean to say, I have had my summer's day, And am passing, soon, away To the grave of Caty-did:-- Poor, unhappy Caty-did!
But you would have utter'd more Had you known of nature's power-- From the world when you retreat, And a leaf's your winding sheet, Long before your spirit fled, Who can tell but nature said, Live again, my Caty-did! Live, and chatter Caty-did.
Tell me, what did Caty do? Did she mean to trouble you?-- Why was Caty not forbid To trouble little Caty-did?-- Wrong, indeed at you to fling, Hurting no one while you sing Caty-did! Caty-did! Caty-did!
Why continue to complain? Caty tells me, she again Will not give you plague or pain:-- Caty says you may be hid Caty will not go to bed While you sing us Caty-did. Caty-did! Caty-did! Caty-did!
But, while singing, you forgot To tell us what did Caty not: Caty-did not think of cold, Flocks retiring to the fold, Winter, with his wrinkles old, Winter, that yourself foretold When you gave us Caty-did.
Stay securely in your nest; Caty now, will do her best, All she can, to make you blest; But, you want no human aid-- Nature, when she form'd you, said, "Independent you are made, My dear little Caty-did: Soon yourself must disappear With the verdure of the year,"-- And to go, we know not where, With your song of Caty-did.
Pensive, on this green turf I cast my eye, And almost feel inclined to muse and sigh: Such tokens of mortality so nigh.
But hold,--who knows if these who soundly sleep, Would not, alive, have made some orphan weep, Or plunged some slumbering victim in the deep.
There may be here, who once were virtue's foes, A curse through life, the cause of many woes, Who wrong'd the widow, and disturb'd repose.
There may be here, who with malicious aim Did all they could to wound another's fame, Steal character, and filch away good name.
Perhaps yond' solitary turf invests Some who, when living, were the social pests, Patrons of ribands, titles, crowns and crests.