Cat Poems and Poetry

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There are several cat poems and poetry from poets who wrote about cats and love for their furrfriends. We've selected a few poems from famous poets and authors.

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"Happy is the home with at least one cat" - Italian Proverb



Famous Cat Poems

The Naming Of Cats

by T. S. Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,

It isn't just one of your holiday games;

You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter

When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.

First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,

Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,

Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--

All of them sensible everyday names.

There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,

Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:

Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--

But all of them sensible everyday names.

But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,

A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,

Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,

Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?

Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,

Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,

Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-

Names that never belong to more than one cat.

But above and beyond there's still one name left over,

And that is the name that you never will guess;

The name that no human research can discover--

But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,

The reason, I tell you, is always the same:

His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation

Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:

His ineffable effable

Effanineffable

Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

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To a Cat

by John Keats

Cat! who has pass'd thy grand climacteric,

How many mice and rats hast in thy days

Destroy'd? How many tit-bits stolen? Gaze

With those bright languid segments green, and

prick

Those velvet ears - but prythee do not stick

Thy latent talons in me - and tell me all thy frays,

Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick;

Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists, -

For all the wheezy asthma - and for all

Thy tail's tip is nick'd off - and though the fists

Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,

Still is thy fur as when the lists

In youth thou enter'dst on glass-bottled wall.

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A Kitten

by Eleanor Farjeon

He's nothing much but fur

And two round eyes of blue,

He has a giant purr

And a midget mew.

He darts and pats the air,

He starts and cocks his ear,

When there is nothing there

For him to see and hear.

He runs around in rings,

But why we cannot tell;

With sideways leaps he springs

At things invisible -

Then half-way through a leap

His startled eyeballs close,

And he drops off to sleep With one paw on his nose.

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More Cat Poems

The Cat And The Moon

by William Butler Yeats

The cat went here and there

And the moon spun round like a top,

And the nearest kin of the moon,

The creeping cat, looked up.

Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,

For, wander and wail as he would,

The pure cold light in the sky

Troubled his animal blood.

Minnaloushe runs in the grass

Lifting his delicate feet.

Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?

When two close kindred meet.

What better than call a dance?

Maybe the moon may learn,

Tired of that courtly fashion,

A new dance turn.

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

From moonlit place to place,

The sacred moon overhead

Has taken a new phase.

Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils

Will pass from change to change,

And that from round to crescent,

From crescent to round they range?

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

Alone, important and wise,

And lifts to the changing moon

His changing eyes.

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Jubilate Agno

by Christopher Smart

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry....

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

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The Cat in the Kitchen

by Robert Bly

Have you heard about the boy who walked by

The black water? I won't say much more.

Let's wait a few years. It wanted to be entered.

Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand

Reaches out and pulls him in.

There was no

Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, or needed

Calcium, bones would do. What happened then?

It was a little like the night wind, which is soft,

And moves slowly, sighing like an old woman

In her kitchen late at night, moving pans

About, lighting a fire, making some food for the cat.

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Cat and Mouse

by David Campbell

Her green eyes change to yellow. This

Is open season. In a glass maze

Lovers play a cat and mouse.

Good cat! He coaxes sparks from her fur.

Scalpel-fine claws

Furrow his forehead.

His tears drop like red pears.

She scratches the tree bole and purrs.

Her tongue rasps the wrong way.

He sorts through his mind like an attic.

Wherever?-A meadow mouse

Peers from her compact.

Take that thought away!

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The Cat of the House

by Ford Madox Ford

Over the hearth with my 'minishing eyes I muse; until after

the last coal dies.

Every tunnel of the mouse,

every channel of the cricket,

I have smelt,

I have felt

the secret shifting of the mouldered rafter,

and heard

every bird in the thicket.

I see

you

Nightingale up in the tree!

I, born of a race of strange things,

of deserts, great temples, great kings,

in the hot sands where the nightingale never sings!

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Cat Poems & Videos

YouTube: SpokenVerse

This cat poem is from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - "Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat" by T.S. Eliot.

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YouTube: poetryreincarnations

Cat Poem. "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Downed in a Tub of Gold Fishes" by Thomas Gray.

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YouTube: Ewechewb

Cat Poem. "The Owl & The Pussy Cat" by Edward Lear.

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YouTube: KidRhymes

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