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 more

Remarkable, she wore

A pair of pointed patent-leather shoes.

            And 1 doubt me greatly whether

            You have heard the like of that:

            Pointed shoes of patent-leather

            On a cat!

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

The poems he occasionally roared.

            (I myself possess a feline,

            But when poetry 1 roar

            He is sure to make a bee-line

            For the door.)

The poet, cent by cent, .All his patrimony spent­

(I might tell how he went from verse to worse!)

 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 uppers

            For 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, instead

Of responding, only read

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:­

"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"­

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.

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,

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!"

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!"

She answered with a wrathful kind of purr.

            "Y ou may shoe me, an it suit you,

            But I feel my conscience bid

            Me, 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 times When the man who fashions rhymes

            Is a rascal, and a bully one to boot!