The Cat’s Future

The Cat’s Sleeplessness

By nature’s laws
The dog bow-wows,
The ass hee-haws,
The cat miaous.

The worst miaous
Occur at night
When cats carouse
With all their might.

A cat miaous
Upon the tiles,
In twenty thousand different styles.

The dog is really useful, for he helps to guard the house,
And he’ll carry your umbrella or your glove;
But a cat does simply nothing save to catch the luckless mouse,
Which no one could account an act of love.

In exchange for cream and butter and the other things she loots,
’Twould be a just and proper thing indeed
To persuade our friend the Pussy to put polish on our boots;
And—instead of midnight carolling—to read.