The Cat and the Moon
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.
W. B. Yeats
My Cat Jeoffry
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his fore-paws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the fore-paws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin & glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
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 incompleat without him & a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
Christopher Smart
The Tyger
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
William Blake
A Sonnet on a Monkey
O lovely O most charming pug
Thy graceful air and heavenly mug
The beauties of his mind do shine
And every bit is shaped so fine
Your very tail is most divine
Your teeth is whiter than the snow
Your eyes are of so fine a shape
More like a christians than an ape.
His cheeks is like the roses blume
Your hair is like the ravens plume
His noses cast is of the roman
He is a very pretty weoman
I could not get a rhyme for roman
And was obliged to call it weoman.
Marjory Fleming
The Cow
The friendly cow, all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.
She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,
The pleasant light of day;
And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all the showers,
She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Cow
The Cow comes home swinging
Her udder and singing:
‘The dirt O the dirt
It does me no hurt.
And a good splash of muck
Is a blessing of luck.
O I splosh through the mud
But the breath of my cud
Is sweeter than silk.
O I splush through manure
But my heart stays pure
As a pitcher of milk.’
Ted Hughes
The Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is as delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I woul
d break
Into blossom.
James Wright
A Small Dragon
I’ve found a small dragon in the woodshed.
Think it must have come from deep inside a forest
because it’s damp and green and leaves
are still reflecting in its eyes.
I fed it on many things, tried grass,
the roots of stars, hazelnut and dandelion,
but it stared up at me as if to say, I need
food you can’t provide.
It made a nest among the coal,
not unlike a bird’s but larger,
it’s out of place here
and is quite silent.
If you believed in it I would come
hurrying to your house to let you share my wonder,
but I want instead to see
if you yourself will pass this way.
Brian Patten
Toy Dog
for Matthew Kay
When I come home from school he doesn’t bark.
He doesn’t fetch the stick I throw for him in Clissold Park,
or bite a burglar’s ankle in the dark.
Toy dog.
When I wake up he doesn’t lick my face.
He never beats me by a mile the times we have a race,
or digs a bone up from his secret place.
Toy dog.
When I say Heel! or Sit! he can’t obey.
I buy a red dog-collar for him, though he will not stray,
or trip me up at soccer when I play.
Toy dog.
One day his brown glass eyes will soften, see.
One night, his nylon tail will wag when I come in for tea;
his cloth leg cock against a lamp post for a pee.
Good dog.
Carol Ann Duffy
A Garden of Bears
Fur is soft, skin isn’t.
Paw is safe, hand isn’t.
Two stiff forelegs, ready
To comfort, not rangy,
Unpredictable arms.
Bears don’t speak. Bears are best.
Dolls are too close to us.
They can be trained to laugh,
To wet themselves, shoot from
The hip, explain about
Erogenous zones, need
Clothes, knives, hairdressers. Break.
Remember this: bears are
Brilliant. There was Sam, the
King of the dictionary,
Shambling, myopic, rude
To earls, tender with cats,
Slaves, women, the poor,
Minding their dignity.
Inside homely teddies,
Lolling in cots, lurks the
Grisly intransigent
Ursus horribilis,
Ten feet tall, solitary,
Surly, reeking of meat.
I know a lot of bears.
Most of them look just like
Other people. But there
Are risks. Abruptly bears
Can turn wiser than us
And braver. There are bears
Who rise to their full height,
Rise to the occasion.
U. A. Fanthorpe
Animals
When I come out of the bathroom
animals are waiting in the hall
and when I settle down to read
an animal comes between me
and my book and when I put on
a fancy dinner, a few animals
are under the table staring at the guests,
and when I mail a letter
or go to the Safeway there’s always
an animal tagging along –
or crying left at home and when I get
home from work animals leap joyously
around my old red car so I feel like
an avatar with flowers & presents all over
her body, and when I dance around
the kitchen at night wild & feeling
lovely as Margie Gillis, the animals
try to dance too, they stagger on
back legs and open their mouths, pink
and black and fanged, and I take their paws
in my hands and bend toward them,
happy and full of love.
Sharon Thesen
SCHOOL
Halfway Street, Sidcup
‘We did sums at school, Mummy –
you do them like this: look.’ I showed her.
It turned out she knew already.
Fleur Adcock
St Gertrude’s, Sidcup
Nuns, now: ladies in black hoods
for teachers – surely that was surprising?
It seems not. It was just England:
like houses made of brick, with stairs,
and dark skies, and Christmas coming
in winter, and there being a war on.
I was five, and unsurprisable –
except by nasty dogs, or the time
When I ran to catch the bus from school
and my knickers fell down in the snow.
Fleur Adcock
A Poetry on Geometry
There was once a line
Who was perfectly fine
Till one day she said,
‘I need someone, who will be mine.’
So it went out to dine
With another line,
And when they were back
They formed an angle.
‘We want to grow’
Said the lines of the angle
‘Let’s call a third one
And form a triangle.’
A fourth line came in
The triangle to share
And when it joined over
It was a square!
The square was happy
It walked on and on
Till another line joined
To form a pentagon.
When it saw another line
The pentagon said ‘Come on’
So when the line joined
It was now a hexagon.
As more lines got added
New shapes were born
Heptagon, octagon, nonagon
And finally a decagon!
With lines and shapes and symmetry,
I made this poetry on Geometry.
Ruhee Parelkar
Inside Sir’s Matchbox
Our teacher’s pet
Lives in a nest of pencil-shavings
Inside a matchbox
Which he keeps
In the top drawer of his desk.
It’s so tiny, he says,
You need a microscope to see it.
When we asked him what it ate,
He grinned and said,
‘Nail clippings and strands of human hair –
Especially children’s.’
Once, on Open Day,
He put it out on the display table,
But we weren’t allowed to open the box,
Because it’s allergic to light.
Our teacher says his pet’s unique.
‘Isn’t it lonely?’ we asked.
‘Not with you lot around,’ he said.
Once, there was an awful commotion
When it escaped
While he was opening the box
To check if it was all right.
But he managed to catch it
Before it got off his desk.
Since then, he hasn’t taken it out much.
He says he thinks it’s hibernating at present –
Or it could be pregnant.
If it is, he says,
There’ll be enough babies
For us all to have one.
John Foster
Dream Team
My team
Will have all the people in it
Who’re normally picked last.
Such as me.
When it’s my turn to be chooser
I’ll overlook Nick Magic-Feet-Jones
And Supersonic Simon H
ughes
And I’ll point at my best friend Sean
Who’ll faint with surprise
And delight.
And at Robin who’s always the one
Left at the end that no one chose –
Unless he’s away, in which case it’s guess who?
And Tim who can’t see a thing
Without his glasses
I’ll pick him.
And the rest of the guys that Mr Miller
Calls dead-legs but only need their chance
To show what they’re made of.
We’ll play in the cup final
In front of the class, the school, the town,
The world, the galaxy.
And due to the masterly leadership shown
By their captain, not forgetting
His three out-of-this-world goals,
We’ll WIN.
Frances Nagle
Make It Bigger, Eileen!
In Art I drew a park
With a pond, and railings, and children playing . . .
And trees with multi-coloured leaves
And mothers with pushchairs and wearing hats that jumped
And joggers running with three legs
And skaters – skating on thin ice with elephants on their backs
And pigeons playing cards on bread tables
And grass with eyes and noses
And flowers with walking sticks and headphones
And clouds that rained smells
And a sun as deep as an ocean
And stones that bled
And a rainbow with stairs.
Sir said . . .
‘Tut, tut, tut – bigger, Eileen, your picture must be bigger’
So I drew a duck.
Joseph Coelho
The New Girl
The new girl stood at Miss Moon’s desk,
Her face pale as a drawing
On white paper,
Her lips coloured too heavily
With a too-dark crayon.
When the others shouted, ‘Me! Me!’