The Poetry of Cats

The cat. Independent when it wants and making us dependent on its whims when it deems. Cats are first thought of as being domesticated in the Near East in about 7500 BC. A few thousand years later in Ancient Egypt they are worshipped as gods. From a domestic cat’s point of view this is pretty much the life they want and that some cats lead right now.
Their larger cousins whether in forest, savannah, mountains or desert were fated for their speed, strength, beauty, feline powers and prowess. They now live in a finely balanced world between freedom and declining numbers as their habitats are destroyed or taken from them.

Across the centuries poets have written verse that captures all manner of thoughts on our complex relationship with all cats, though mainly the humble moggy, on whose whims we slave over, eager for a look of recognition, the nod of thanks or the purr of gratitude.

1 - The Poetry of Cats - An Introduction

2 - The Cat and the Moon by William Butler Yeats

3 - The Cat by Charles Baudelaire

4 - The Lions by Joseph Mary Plunkett

5 - The Owl and the Pussy Cat by Edward Lear

6 - An Appeal to Cats in the Business of Love by Thomas Flatman

7 - To My Cat by Rosamund Marriott Watson

8 - Verses on a Cat by Percy Bysshe Shelley

9 - Milk For the Cat by Harold Munro

10 - The Cats Have Come To Tea by Kate Greenaway

11 - St Jerome's Cat by Anonymous

12 - The Lazy Pussy by Palmer Cox

13 - Sad Memories by Charles Calverly

14 - Mrs Reynold's Cat by John Keats

15 - Mujer by William Carlos Williams

16 - Black Cat by Rainer Maria Rilke

17 - The Cats Will Know by Cesare Pavese

18 - A Cat by Edward Thomas

19 - The Cat of the House by Ford Madox Ford

20 - To Winky by Amy Lowell

21 - The Panther by Rainer Maria Rilke

22 - Jaguar by Lola Ridge

23 - Julbilate Agno by Christopher Smart

24 - Little Tiger by H P Lovecraft

25 - The Tiger by William Blake

26 - Sonnet XIX - Devouring Time, Blunt Thou the Lion's Paws by William Shakespeare

27 - The Lion Who Hunted with the Wolf and the Fox by Rumi

28 - The Eagle, The Sow and the Cat by Anne Kingsmill Finch

29 - The Vain Cat by Ambrose Bierce

30 - To A Cat by Algernon Charles Swinburne

31 - The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat by Eugene Field

32 - How the Feud Started by Arthur Guiterman

33 - The Old Cat and the Young Mouse by Jean De La Fontaine

34 - The Cat and the Old Rat by Jean de la Fontaine

35 - The Rat-Catcher and Cats by John Gay

36 - Two Little Kittens by Anonymous

37 - Familiarity Dangerous by William Cowper

38 - The Kitten and the Falling Leaves by William Wordsworth

39 - The First Cat by Arthur Guiterman

40 - Had Tiberius Been a Cat by Matthew Arnold

41 - An Oxford Don Curses his Cat by Thomas Master

42 - Pangur Ban - The Scholar and His Cat by Anonymous

43 - Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat - Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes by Thomas Gray

44 - On the Death of a Cat by Christina Georgina Rossetti

45 - Epitaph on a Pet Cat by Joachim Du Bellay

46 - Last Words To A Dumb Friend by Thomas Hardy