The Persian Kitty

A Persian kitty, perfumed and fair,
Strolled out through the kitchen door for air.
When a tom-cat, lithe and long,
And dirty and yellow, came along.
He sniffed at the perfumed Persian cat,
As she strutted about with much éclat,
And, wishing a bit of time to pass,
Said, “Kitty, you sure have got some class.”
“That’s fitting and proper,” was her reply,
As she arched the whisker over her eye;
“I’m ribboned, I sleep on a pillow of silk,
And each night they bathe me in certified milk.
But we’re never contented with what we’ve got.
I should be joyful, but joyful I’m not.
I should be happy, happy indeed
For I am highly pedigreed.”
“Take heed”, said the tom-cat, with a smile,
“And trust to your new-found friend a while.
You need to escape from your back-yard fence.
All you lack, my dear, is experience.”
Gay scenes of living then unfurled,
As he told her tales of the outside world.
And suggested, at last, with a luring laugh,
A trip for two down the primrose path.
The morning after the night before,
The cat returned at the hour of four.
The look in her innocent had went,
But she wore, instead, a smile of content.
And in after-years, when the children came,
To the perfumed kitty of pedigreed fame,
They weren’t Persian, they were black and tan,
And she told them their Pa was a traveling-man.

Courtesy of the Clark University

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