![]() ![]() Lear wrote ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ for a friend’s daughter, Janet Symonds, who was born in 1865 and was three years old when Lear wrote the poem. He revealed in a little-known sequel to the poem that the cat was indeed the female in the relationship, which makes it even more interesting that it is the cat that proposes the idea of marriage to the owl. What list of cat poems would be complete without Edward Lear’s nonsense classic? Lear wrote ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ in 1868 and it was first published in 1871. They took some honey, and plenty of money, Edward Lear, ‘ The Owl and the Pussycat‘. Jeoffrey has been called the ‘most famous cat in the whole history of English literature’ by one of Smart’s biographers, Neil Curry.Ĩ. Jeoffrey was Smart’s only companion during his time in the asylum, and Smart wrote this touching celebration of his feline friend. (The poem was only first published in 1939.) Christopher Smart, from Jubilate Agno (‘ My Cat Jeoffry‘).įor he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.įor at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.įor this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.įor then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.įor having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself …Ĭhristopher ‘Kit’ Smart (1722-1771) was confined to a mental asylum for a number of years, and it was during his confinement that Smart wrote Jubilate Agno (‘Rejoice in the Lamb’), a religious poem composed between 17. This poem first appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1792, and manages to convey the cat’s voice in a manner that is ironic and amusing but also touching and poignant, since the cat realises that she will miss her master when she has died.ħ. Where green valerian tufts, luxuriant spread,Ĭleanse the sleek hide and form the fragrant bed … Warm marum creeping round their shallow brim Near wells of cream that mortals never skim, While birds unwinged hop careless o’er the ground,Īnd the plump mouse incessant trots around, They gasp on shelving banks, our easy prey: Venturing without the shielding waves to play, The crimson spots and fins of lucid gold, Anna Seward, ‘ An Old Cat’s Dying Soliloquy‘. Explore our pick of Eliot’s best poems here.Ħ. ‘Macavity, the Mystery Cat’ is one of the best-known poems in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, about a feline master criminal (probably loosely based on Conan Doyle‘s Professor Moriarty – Eliot was a huge Sherlock Holmes fan). This in turn inspired the Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical Cats. Eliot is not just his love of cats (he owned many himself with names including George Pushdragon, Noilly Prat, Pettipaws, Tantomile, and Wiscus) but the fact that he wrote a volume of nonsense verses about cats, for his godchildren. His other enduring poem is this, written about the cat belonging to Gray’s friend Horace Walpole, inventor of the Gothic novel Walpole’s cat did indeed drown in 1747.ĥ. ![]()
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