How a Cat Was Annoyed and a Poet Was Booted

A poet had a cat.There is nothing odd in that—(I might make a little pun about the Mews!)But what is really moreRemarkable, she woreA pair of pointed patent-leather shoes.And I doubt me greatly whetherE’er you heard the like of that:Pointed shoes of patent-leatherOn a cat!

His time he used to passWriting sonnets, on the grass—(I might say something good on pen and sward!)While the cat sat near at hand,Trying hard to understandThe poems he occasionally roared.(I myself possess a feline,But when poetry I roarHe is sure to make a bee-lineFor the door.)

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.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 uppersFor a fact!”

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, insteadOf responding, only readA 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 approximatelyHow it went: —

“If I should live to beThe 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” —Well, he’d plagiarized it bodily, in brief!But that cat of simple breedingCouldn’t read the lines between,So she took it to a leadingMagazine.

She was jarred and very soreWhen they showed her to the door.(I might hit off the door that was a jar!)To the spot she swift returnedWhere the poet sighed and yearned,And she told him that he’d gone a little far.“Your performance with this rhyme hasMade me absolutely sick,”She remarked. “I think the time hasCome to kick!”

I could fill up half the pageWith 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!”She answered with a wrathful kind of purr.“You may shoo me, and it suit you,But I feel my conscience bidMe, as tit for tat, to boot you!”(Which she did.)

The Moral of the plot(Though I say it, as should not!)Is: An editor is difficult to suit.But again there’re other timesWhen the man who fashions rhymesIs a rascal, and a bully one to boot!