Based on "Mandalay" by Rudyard Kipling

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking westward from the past,
There's a Birman cat reclining with her blue eyed gaze held fast
To the golden pointed spires, and the temple bells they play,
Come you back, my Birman kittens, come you back to Mandalay.
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where they took the cats away.
Can't you hear their spirits calling from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the sacred kittens play,
And the dawn comes creeping slowly west to show the lost the way.

The Birman was a Temple cat, his fur was snowy white,
Till marauders from Siam had killed his priest without a fight,
As he gazed into the Goddess eyes, his own had turned to blue,
With his feet upon his priest, his coat became a golden hue.
But his master couldn't ride
Soul-less to the other side,
On the seventh day of mourning, Sinh the sacred cat had died.
On the road to Mandalay
Where the lonely brothers pray,
And the dawn comes creeping slowly west to show the lost the way.

When they took us out of Burma ere the temple priests could see,
And the catteries of Paris had become our destiny,
Had we trod the Himalayas to the temples of Tibet,
We'd not fallen by the wayside, and be safely hidden yet.
And the countries went to war
As all countries had before,
While we huddled in the cellar dirt or died upon the floor.
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the sacred kittens play,
And the dawn comes creeping slowly west to show the lost the way.

When they sent us 'crost the ocean to a country vast and wide,
There were few of us remaining, and the best of us had died.
We have bred and sired kittens for the shows of the elite,
Lying not on ancient stone, but chemicals beneath our feet.
Where the wire cages bend,
And the hybrid is our friend,
It would break the Goddess heart to see us come to such an end.
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the gold is gone away,
And the dawn comes creeping slowly west to show the lost the way.

Now there isn't any Burma, for they call it Myanmar,
And perfection of the Birman has been bred away too far.
They have crossed us with the tabbies, so to paint our fur in reds,
And the sacred turns to blasphemy upon our lovely heads.
Now our seven silver bells
Are in stories someone tells,
We have never seen a temple, we shall never hear the bells.
On the road to Mandalay,
Where no cat at all dare stay,
And the dawn comes creeping slowly west to show the lost the way.

We have seen a century go past, but never seen the moon,
And we've come too far from Burma now to find our old Rangoon,
But the temple bells are calling, and it's there that we would be,
With the spirits of the Birmans in the mountains by the sea.
Come you back to Mandalay,
We can hear the mother say,
Give me back my sacred kittens, ere I die in Mandalay.
On the road to Mandalay,
Let your spirits rest and stay,
Till we rise again in temples from Rangoon to Mandalay.

Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the lonely brothers pray,
Can you hear the distant thunder? It's repeating what I say!
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the sacred cats would play,
And the dawn comes creeping slowly west to show the lost the way.

©2001 by Sharon Goodman

Dedicated to CH Birnanza Phelicity Marie Dauphine
and in honor of her sire, SGC Bonni-bir Dauphin of WynsomeBir, 1980-1994
and her mother, Bar-bir-as Misha, 1989-1998