What Is Prank?
Christopher Smart wrote in the poem Jubilate Agno:
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffrey.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in...
According to the OED, one definition of prank is "capricious or frolicsome actions or movements of animals".
For he is of the tribe of the tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Tiger Angel...
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery...
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest...
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffrey.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in...
According to the OED, one definition of prank is "capricious or frolicsome actions or movements of animals".
For he is of the tribe of the tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Tiger Angel...
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery...
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest...
posted by Lizzy at 4:07 PM
3 Comments:
That is my very most favourite poem. It was once given to me as a gift, printed on heavy cream stock. Poor Smart was quite mad, of course, but it did not keep him from being both a great poet and a lover of all things Tiger Angelic.
It is an amazing poem - I encountered for the first time a week ago when a friend brought it to my attention in an anthology of Welsh verse. (Question: Wasn't Smart actually English?) Anyway, the more I read it, the more taken I am with his artist's awareness of beauty and that sense of transcendent love flowing in all directions...
I thought he was, too - English, that is. Perhaps he was Welsh in the same sense that Maud Gonne was - the family originally coming over to claim land given to them as spoils (it was one of the Henrys, I believe, who made the Irish land grants), then staying and establishing deep roots in the country. There's a very early Irish poem about a cat, written by his human, but it doesn't come to mind right now. Sorry, I'm woolgathering.
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