(A shaggy mog story.)

Let’s ponder on the problems set
Composers by a feline pet;

For instance how the cat of Handel
Incontinently caused a scandal,
When - near the end of “The Messiah” -
From G. F.’s feet it scrambled higher,
And, caring for the work no fig,
Left a new movement in his wig!
The kapellmeister, quite bemused,
Rebuked it: “Puss, we’re not amewsed!
A lapse that you’re peculiar for has
Collapsed my Halleluia Chorus!”…..

Concatenations even cruder
Crazed the tough tom of Buxtehude;
Its carnal rapture for the charms
Of a Manx minx at a gig by Brahms
- Though all observers praised the cat on
Following the maestro’s baton -
Made poor Johannes chuck his score
At this “indelicate crise d’amour”…..

A high “Miaow” once caused a low pitch
In a symphony by Shostakovitch.
Pusski had tried a new harmonic,
With resonance so catatonic-
Sol-fa, that the audience - copy-cats! -
Made cat-calls in both sharps and flats;
And Dmitri, at this ‘planned offence’,
Was banned for ‘cattypalist decadence’!…..

Other composers from the steppes
Are more inclined to cataleps-
Y; so one sick and stricken man
(Since known as Catchaturian!!!),
When racked with a catarrhal spasm,
Wrapped himself up in cataplasm
Of a category so creepy-crawling
His ‘vocalese’ turned caterwauling….

To one yet worse I must refer - Hell,
He even changed his name to Purrrcell!,
And so became, to his despight,
A kind of mewsical catamite!,
(Or – put the thing the modern way –
We’d call him ‘pussy-whipped’ today.)
Promoting – and what could he mean? –
An opera called “The Furry Queen”…..

Duettists of less dire a doom
Also frequent this catacomb;
There’s heavy-humoured Richard Strauss
Who gave his katze’s name as “Maus”;
Or that chic “chatte” of Clawed Debussy
We find reclined as “Mam’zelle Pussy”;
Modeste Mouseorgsky’s tsar-crossed mate,
Immodestly called “Cat the Great”;
And the fluffy chum of Benjy Britten
Creakily gambolling as “kitten”.
While fiery Franz, who dared resist
This fad, became a cata-Liszt!!!

If all these great composers mope, as
An opus turns into an ‘oh-puss!’,
There’s nothing left for us to do -
And here I’m meaning me and you,
From Catalonia, or Cat-
eechee, or Persian gulf Muscat,
Or Catford, Catskill, Catmandu,
To Catacaos (in Peru),
But leave this feline catalogue
Before it starts our steps to……dog?

This curse is catching, so they say
We ought to ‘pussy-foot’ away!
But first there’s one relief to mark –
The damn things daren’t attempt a Bach!

P.S.
I thought of saying, for a lark,
“The damn things do not Offenbach”;
But wiser counsels must prevail,
So here I “pull” this shaggy tale.