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Shepperson Memorial

“To err is human”
- That’s true;
“To forgive divine” –
- Maybe, too.
But how much easier to be just feline.

Snug, snug, snug in a warm, warm rug;
Come sun, come rain, the same, the same,
Milk and scraps: her life an ecstasy of laps.
She purrs and rubs her silken fur against
Her mistress’s silken legs, cunning creature;
And wrinkles up each feline feature,
Her whole body crying: “Milk! Milk! Milk!”
And so she soon defeats the wife.
Sweet heavens, what a glorious life!

And so I’m praying the gods above
That, if for me, they’ve any love,
At my next reincarnation they’ll put me back
Into the body of a snug and sleek old cat.
For, when I see this crazy world,
Where it’s always work, fight, love and pay –
Oh, I wish that’s all I had to do:
Just lie in the sun like a cat all day.

King’s Cliffe is a Northamptonshire village not far from Peterborough. It contains
some fine old buildings, notably ecclesiastical; and is the birthplace of William Law
(1686-1761), the Anglican divine and scholar, who published several theological
works, especially his influential A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728).
George Shepperson.

George Shepperson had volunteered to give ‘improving talks’ of an educational nature
to a group of Concientious Objectors who were billeted at the King’s Cliffe Youth
Hostel whilst engaged in enforced war-time agricultural work. Editor.

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