The Poetry Of Cats

By William Wordsworth

In Ancient Egypt the Cat was revered and worshipped. Here in modern times the Cat is seen as an independent animal, slightly mysterious and aloof, but willing to settle in any warm spot from a lap to a pool of sunshine given the appropriate amount of patience, petting or treats. Quite who is in charge is sometimes difficult to fathom. In this volume our greatest wordsmiths do indeed wax lyrical about Cats and Kittens, Lions and Tigers, Panthers and other members of the feline family. From Shelley to Wordsworth, Yeats to Dickinson they all took time out to place on record their thoughts on one of our best loved animals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copyright Group
• Release date: Jan 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781783948031

Book preview

THE POETRY OF CATS

In Ancient Egypt the Cat was revered and worshipped.  

Here in modern times the Cat is seen as an independent animal, slightly mysterious and aloof, but willing to settle in any warm spot from a lap to a pool of sunshine given the appropriate amount of patience, petting or treats.  Quite who is in charge is sometimes difficult to fathom.

In this volume our greatest wordsmiths do indeed wax lyrical about Cats and Kittens, Lions and Tigers, Panthers and other members of the feline family.   

From Shelley to Wordsworth, Yeats to Dickinson they all took time out to place on record their thoughts on one of our best loved animals.

Many of these poems have been recorded by our sister company, Portable Poetry, and is available as an audiobook from iTunes, Amazon and other fine digital stores.

Index Of Poems

Cats - Charles Baudelaire

The Cats - HP Lovecraft

Cats -  John Bannister Tabb

The Sphinx – Oscar Wilde

A Cat – Edward Thomas

On The Death Of A Favourite Cat, Drowned In A Tub Of Gold Fishes – Thomas Gray

The Cat And The Moon – WB Yeats

The Mysterious Cat – Vachel Lindsay

To A Cat – Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Retired Cat – William Cowper

Cat-Pie – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Eagle, The Sow, And The Cat – Anne Kingsmill Finch

Verses On A Cat – Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Cat of Cats – William Brighty Rands

Chaplinesque – Hart Crane

Last Words to a Dumb Friend – Thomas Hardy

The Lion Hunt – Thomas Pringle

Don't Tease The Lion – Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Panther – Rainer Maria Rilke

Civilization—Spurns—The Leopard! – Emily Dickinson

A Dying Tiger—Moaned For Drink – Emily Dickinson

Tiger - Tiger! – Rudyard Kipling

The Old Cat And The Young Mouse - Jean de La Fontaine

Beware of Kittens - Heinrich Heine

Woman And Cat – Paul Verlaine

Had Tiberius Been A Cat – Matthew Arnold

Kilkenny Cats - Traditional

Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat (From Mother Goose) - Traditional

Mice Before Milk – Geoffrey Chaucer

Kittens! Kittens! – William Wordsworth

The Rat-Catcher And Cats – John Gay

See the Kitten On The Wall – William Wordsworth

On A Cat Ageing – Alexander Gray

Pussy Can Sit By The Fire and Sing – Rudyard Kipling

The Kitten And The Falling Leaves – William Wordsworth

The Owl and the Pussycat – Edward Lear

To Mrs Reynold's Cat – John Keats

To a Cat - John Keats

Familiarity Dangerous – William Cowper

The Kitten - Joanna Baillie

On the Death Of A Cat - Christina Georgina Rossetti

Hodge the Cat – Sarah Chauncey Woolsey

The Tyger – William Blake

Le Chat Noir – Graham Thomson

The Duel – Eugene Field

One O’Clock – Katherine Lyle

A Cat’s Dream – Amy Prentice

The Cats Have Come To Tea – Kate Greenaway

The Three Little Kittens - Eliza Lee Cabot Follen           

An Appeal to Cats in the Business of Love – Thomas Flatman

The Lazy Pussy by Palmer Cox

To a Persian Cat – FCW Hiley

The Vain Cat – Ambrose Bierce

Cats - Charles Baudelaire

They are alike, prim scholar and perfervid lover:

When comes the season of decay, they both decide

Upon sweet, husky cats to be the household pride;

Cats choose, like them, to sit, and like them, shudder.

Like partisans of carnal dalliance and science,

They search for silence and the shadowings of dread;

Hell well might harness them as horses for the dead,

If it could bend their native proudness in compliance.

In reverie they emulate the noble mood

Of giant sphinxes stretched in depths of solitude

Who seem