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
(Tags : The Poetry of Cats William Wordsworth, Rainer Maria Rilke & Christina Georgina Rossetti Audiobook, William Wordsworth, Rainer Maria Rilke & Christina Georgina Rossetti Audio CD )
