C ats Sleep Anywhere
Cats sleep anywhere, any table, any chair.
Top of piano, window-ledge, in the middle, on the edge.
Open draw, empty shoe, anybody's lap will do.
Fitted in a cardboard box, in the cupboard with your frocks.
Anywhere! They don't care! Cats sleep anywhere.
Eleanor Farjeon (1881 - 1965)

S t. Jerome's Cat
St. Jerome in his study kept a great big cat,
it's always in his pictures, with its feet upon the mat.
Did he give it milk to drink, in a little dish?
When it came to Friday's, did he give it fish?
If I lost my little cat, I'd be sad without it;
I should ask St. Jerome what to do about it.
I should ask St. Jerome, just because of that,
for he's the only saint I know who kept a kitty cat.
Anonymous

S ee the Kitten
See the kitten on the wall, sporting with the leaves that fall.
Withered leaves - one - two - three from the lofty elder tree.
Though the calm and frosty air, of this morning bright and fair.
Eddying round and round they sink, softly, slowly; one might think.
From the motions that are made, every little leaf conveyed
Sylph or Faery hither tending, to this lower world descending.
Each invisible and mute, in his wavering parachute.
But the Kitten, how she starts, crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!
First at one, and then its fellow, just as light and just as yellow.
There are many now - now one, now they stop and there are none.
What intenseness of desire, in her upward eye of fire!
With a tiger-leap half-way, now she meets the coming prey.
lets it go as fast, and then; Has it in her power again.
Now she works with three or four, like an Indian conjurer; quick as he in feats of art, far beyond in joy of heart.
Where her antics played in the eye, of a thousand standers-by,
clapping hands with shout and stare, what would little Tabby care!
For the plaudits of the crowd?
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

F ive Little Eyes
In Hans' old mill his three black cats watch his bins for the thieving rats.
Whisker and claw, they crouch in the night, their five eyes smouldering green and bright.
Squeaks from the flour sacks, squeaks from where. The cold wind stirs on the empty stair, squeaking and scampering, everywhere.
Then down they pounce, now in, now out, at whisking tail, and sniffing snout.
While lean old Hans he snores away, till peep of light at break of day.
Then up he climbs to his creaking mill, out come his cats all grey with meal.
jekkel, and Jessup, and one-eyed Jill.
Walter (John) De La Mare (1873-1956)