Tame Cat
“It rests me to be among beautiful women.Why should one always lie about such matters?
I repeat:It rests me to converse with beautiful womenEven though we talk nothing but nonsense,
The purring of the invisible antennæIs both stimulating and delightful.”
Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.
About this text
Tame Cat is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lustra of Ezra Pound, Project Gutenberg ebook #55564; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ezra Pound, Tame Cat, in Lustra (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #55564, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pound-lustra/tame-cat.html, id L01296.
Form and metre
Tame Cat is 9 lines in 4 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%). 77% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 22% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| “It rests me to be among beautiful women. | 12 | ·······/˘˘/˘ |
| Why should one always lie about such matters? | 11 | ···/·····/˘ |
| I repeat: | 3 | ·˘/ |
| It rests me to converse with beautiful women | 12 | ····/˘·/˘˘/˘ |
| Even though we talk nothing but nonsense, | 10 | /˘···/˘·/˘ |
| The purring of the invisible antennæ | 11 | ·/˘··˘/˘˘·· |
| Is both stimulating and delightful.” | 10 | ··/˘·˘·˘/˘ |
| Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth, | 10 | ·/˘˘······ |
| Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes. | 11 | ·/·˘····/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.