Poetry for Your Reading Pleasure: The Owl and the Pussy-Cat

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat — by Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat:
They took some honey, and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
    You are
    You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing!
Oh! let us be married; too long we have tarried,
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the bong-tree grows;
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,
With a ring at the end of his nose,
    His nose,
    His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
    The moon,
    The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

Illustration by Edward Lear

Today Edward Lear (1812-1888) is probably best remembered for his nonsensical poetry and prose, but he was well known in his day as a serious artist and illustrator. Supposedly he even gave Queen Victoria drawing lessons. He helped to popularize the limerick and was never above coining a phrase or inventing words (such as runcible) when the ones available to him simply would not do. The Owl and the Pussy-Cat is one of his most beloved poems. Igor Stravinsky (famous for his composition The Rite of Spring) set the poem to music in the 1960s, and it has been the basis of various songs and books, including The Quite Remarkable Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame. Lear himself was an admirer of the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Poetry for Your Reading Pleasure: Pangur Ban

Pangur Ban - Translation attributed to Robin Flowers
 
I and Pangur Ban, my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
 
Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will;
He, too, plies his simple skill.
 
'Tis a merry thing to see
At our task how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.
 
Oftentimes a mouse will stray
Into the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.
 
'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.
 
When a mouse darts from its den.
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!
 
So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine, and he has his.
 
Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning Darkness into light.

This ninth-century poem was written in the Reichenau Primer (aka St. Paul Irish Codex) by an Irish monk who was probably practicing his copyist skills. The monk would have been far from his native soil, most likely in a monastery on Lake Constance, and whether he was the original author is unknown. Other content in his "notebook" includes inscriptions pertaining to typical scholarly topics in the Dark Ages, such as metaphysics and logic, with an astrological table among them. The manuscript is now in the monastery of Saint Paul in Unterdrauberg, Austria.

Page of the Primer with Pangur Ban penned in, lower left

Pangur means "fuller," which was a method for treating wool, and ban means "white." If you think about these meanings, you might agree that Pangur Ban could have been another way of calling a cat Fluffy. :)

The poem came to light in the early 20th century and has since been translated from Old Irish and interpreted by a great many poets, including W.H. Auden and Frank O'Connor. Robin Flowers, whose translation I shared, chose a rhyming format that I find a lot of fun. For a great blog entry on tracking down information on the Pangur Ban manuscript, see this article by SuburbanBanshee on wordpress.

I hope you've enjoyed this lovely poem that, although written so long ago, has a special resonance for anyone who owns a cat or who loves poetry - or both!

Best wishes from PrettyGonzo! 

An InterFaith Prayer

Normally Monday is the day for my "What's Happening at the Shop" post. However, in the past week someone very near and dear to me ended up in the hospital and is in serious condition in an intensive care unit. Consequently, not much has been happening at the shop—although a lot has been happening at the hospital.

I found the following interfaith blessing online, and I thought it might serve today's blog post better than anything else. It was written by Abby Willowroot, and I am including a link to her site here: please click. This is her beautiful blessing:

Healing Blessing

Bless this day with healing, bless it with
radiant sun energy, fill each cell of the body,
bringing a flood of healthy energy to all the body,
banishing illness & disease, as healing grows.

May the abundant powers of health flourish within,
each day, may they expand & grow stronger,
bringing the gifts of vitality, strength & wellbeing,
Blessings flow now with ample energy & happiness.

                                                                                       ~ Abby Willowroot © 2009

Please note that this is copyrighted material and that the author kindly permits sharing for noncommercial purposes and also requests a link to her site. A link to information on ordering her book Life Changes: InterFaith Prayers & Blessings is here: click.

Many thanks to Abby for sharing this.
______________________________

Perhaps for a moment somewhere between the last-minute shopping rush and Christmas preparations, we might all consider those who are less fortunate and able than us this holiday season, and send a little hopeful energy their way through a prayer, or the above blessing, or simply a positive thought.

Best wishes for a happy holiday season from Gonzo and me.

Poetry for Your Reading Pleasure: Dorothy Wordsworth

from Loving and Liking: Irregular Verses Addressed to a Child - by Dorothy Wordsworth

  Long may you love your pensioner mouse,
Though one of a tribe that torment the house:
Nor dislike for her cruel sport the cat
Deadly foe both of mouse and rat;
Remember she follows the law of her kind,
And Instinct is neither wayward nor blind.
Then think of her beautiful gliding form,
Her tread that would scarcely crush a worm,
And her soothing song by the winter fire,
Soft as the dying throb of the lyre.
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Dorothy Wordsworth (1771–1855) was the sister of the better-known major Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Her poems were not published in her lifetime. The majority of her writing focused on nature, and her works include various journals and travelogues.

I hope you have enjoy this week's poem. The countdown to Christmas is here! Wishing you the best as you prepare for your holiday celebrations. Season's Greetings from PrettyGonzo!

Poetry for Your Reading Pleasure

To Mrs. Reynolds' Cat - by John Keats

Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears—but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me—and upraise
Thy gentle mew—and tell me all thy frays,
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists—
For all thy wheezy asthma—and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off—and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft, as when the lists
In youth thou enter’dest on glass bottled wall.
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Keats was inspired to write this beautiful sonnet by an old cat owned by a friend's mother. The poet inhabits the world of the aged  feline as if he were a curious young cat eager for tales from the alley of life. His humane tenderness cannot help but shine through, though, and his praise of the cat's fur, soft despite the hardness of life, brims with compassion. The aged feline may have entered life on a wall designed to hurt and discourage passage with its broken glass, but the cat has made it over the wall—of time, of age, of maids doling out a mauling—and triumphed with its fur no less lovely for the wear.

John Keats lived a brief life, from 1795 to 1821, but his status as one of the great English Romantic poets has long outlived him. Schooled to be a surgeon, and on course to success in the field of medicine, Keats abandoned his studies for poetry when in his early twenties. His struggle with ill health began shortly thereafter, traceable to the young poet tending to his brother Tom, who had tuberculosis and would die of it (as eventually would John). Keats also suffered from the weight of family responsibility and financial problems, and his early poetic efforts were not well received. Despite these troubles, the young man managed to write some of the best-known and most beloved poems in the English language. He is also renowned for his letters, which include correspondence with the woman of his dreams, Fanny Brawne, and offer insights into his poetry as well as a philosophy of poetry itself.

The world's loss of Keats at such a young age was tragic, and his knowledge of impending death heartbreaking. Nonetheless, there is a beauty to many of his poems that transcends sadness, and his belief in "the truth of the Imagination" has never lost its vital significance.

I hope you have found this week's poem to your liking! I wish you all a holiday season full of beauty and imagination. Cheers from Pretty Gonzo! 

Poetry for Your Reading Pleasure

The Naming of Cats - by T.S. Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum—
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover—
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.
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As a matter of note, T.S. Eliot (1886–1965) wrote Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, on which the popular musical Cats was based (and the source of the poem above). Eliot is a major 20th century modern poet probably best known for his poems The Wasteland and The Hollow Men. His Four Quartets are among the best poems ever written in the English language. 

Poetry for Your Reading Pleasure

The Cat and the Moon - by William Butler Yeats

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.

Poetry for Your Reading Pleasure

Fog - by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.