To Sir Green-eyes Grimalkin de Tabby de Sly
His mistress remarked one day,
“I’m tormented, my cat, both by mouse and by rat:
Come rid me of them, I pray!
“For though you’re a cat of renowned descent,
And your kittenhood’s long been gone,
Yet never a trace of the blood of your race
In battle or siege you’ve shown.”
Sir Green-eyes Grimalkin de Tabby de Sly
Arose from his downy bed.
He washed himself o’er, from his knightly paw
To the top of his knightly head.
And he curled his whiskers, and combed his hair,
And put on his perfumed gloves;
And his sword he girt on, which had never been drawn
Save to dazzle the eyes of his loves.
And when he had cast one admiring glance
On the looking-glass tall and fair,
To the pantry he passed; but he stood aghast,
For lo! the pantry was bare!
The pickles, the cookies, the pies were gone!
And naught remained on the shelf
Save the bone of a ham, which lay cold and calm,
The ghost of its former self.
Sir Green-eyes Grimalkin stood sore dismayed,
And he looked for the mice and rats.
But they, every one, had been long since gone
Far, far from the reach of cats.
For while he was donning his satin pelisse,
And his ribbons and laces gay,
They had finished their feast, without hurry the least,
And had tranquilly trotted away.
The mistress of Green-eyes Grimalkin de Sly,
A woman full stern was she.
She came to the door, and she rated him sore
When the state of the case she did see.
She grasped him, spite of his knightly blood,
By the tip of his knightly tail;
His adornments she stripped, and his body she dipped
Three times in the water-pail.
She plunged him thrice ‘neath the icy flood,
Then turned him out-doors to dry;
And terror and cold on his feelings so told,
That he really was like to die.
And now in this world ‘twould be hard to find,
Although you looked low and high,
A cat who cares less for the beauties of dress
Than Sir Green-eyes Grimalkin de Sly.