| A POET had a cat. | |
| There is nothing odd in that— | |
| (I might make a little pun about the Mews!) | |
| But what is really more | |
| Remarkable, she wore | 5 |
| A pair of pointed patent-leather shoes. | |
| And I doubt me greatly whether | |
| E'er you heard the like of that: | |
| Pointed shoes of patent-leather | |
| On a cat! | 10 |
| |
| His time he used to pass | |
| Writing sonnets, on the grass— | |
| (I might say something good on pen and sward!) | |
| While the cat sat near at hand, | |
| Trying hard to understand | 15 |
| The poems he occasionally roared. | |
| (I myself possess a feline, | |
| But when poetry I roar | |
| He is sure to make a bee-line | |
| For the door.) | 20 |
| |
| The poet, cent by cent, | |
| All his patrimony spent— | |
| (I might tell how he went from verse to werse!) | |
| Till the cat was sure she could, | |
| By advising, do him good. | 25 |
| So addressed him in a manner that was terse: | |
| "We are bound toward the scuppers, | |
| And the time has come to act, | |
| Or we'll both be on our uppers | |
| For a fact!" | 30 |
| |
| On her boot she fixed her eye, | |
| But the boot made no reply— | |
| (I might say: "Couldn't speak to save its sole!") | |
| And the foolish bard, instead | |
| Of responding, only read | 35 |
| A verse that wasn't bad upon the whole. | |
| And it pleased the cat so greatly, | |
| Though she knew not what it meant, | |
| That I'll quote approximately | |
| How it went:— | 40 |
| |
| "If I should live to be | |
| The last leaf upon the tree"— | |
| (I might put in: "I think I'd just as leaf!") | |
| "Let them smile, as I do now, | |
| At the old forsaken bough"— | 45 |
| Well, he'd plagiarized it bodily, in brief! | |
| But that cat of simple breeding | |
| Couldn't read the lines between, | |
| So she took it to a leading | |
| Magazine. | 50 |
| |
| She was jarred and very sore | |
| When they showed her to the door. | |
| (I might hit off the door that was a jar!) | |
| To the spot she swift returned | |
| Where the poet sighed and yearned, | 55 |
| And she told him that he'd gone a little far. | |
| "Your performance with this rhyme has | |
| Made me absolutely sick," | |
| She remarked. "I think the time has | |
| Come to kick!" | 60 |
| |
| I could fill up half the page | |
| With descriptions of her rage— | |
| (I might say that she went a bit too fur!) | |
| When he smiled and murmured: "Shoo!" | |
| "There is one thing I can do!" | 65 |
| She answered with a wrathful kind of purr. | |
| "You may shoo me, and it suit you, | |
| But I feel my conscience bid | |
| Me, as tit for tat, to boot you!" | |
| (Which she did.) | 70 |
| |
| The Moral of the plot | |
| (Though I say it, as should not!) | |
| Is: An editor is difficult to suit. | |
| But again there're other times | |
| When the man who fashions rhymes | 75 |
| Is a rascal, and a bully one to boot! | |
