Poem
Macavity - The Mystery Cat
There is always an air of mystery in cats. They appear to see something which we don’t. Macavity is one such elusive, agile and phantom-like cat. Read this humorous lyric poem and find out what happens when he strikes.
Macavity’s a
Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw
For he’s the master
criminal who can defy the Law.
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying
Squad’s despair:
For when they reach
the scene of crime — Macavity’s not there!
Macavity, Macavity,
there’s no one like Macavity,
He’s broken every
human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach
the scene of crime — Macavity’s not there!
You may seek him in
the basement, you may look up in the air —
But I tell you once
and once again, Macavity’s not there!
Macavity’s a ginger cat, he’s very tall and thin;
You would know him
if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply
lined with thought, his head is highly domed;
His coat is dusty
from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head
from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think
he’s half asleep, he’s always wide awake.
Macavity, Macavity,
there’s no one like Macavity,
For he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in
a by-street, you may see him in the square —
But when a crime’s
discovered, then Macavity’s not there!
He’s outwardly
respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints
are not found in any file of Scotland Yard’s.
And when the larder’s looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke’s been stifled,
Or the greenhouse
glass is broken, and the trellis past repair
Ay, there’s the
wonder of the thing! Macavity’s not there!
And when the
Foreign Office find a Treaty’s gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the
way,
There may be a
scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair
But it’s useless to
investigate, Macavity’s not there!
And when the loss
has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
‘It must have been
Macavity!’ but he’s a mile away.
You’ll be sure to
find him resting, or a licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing
complicated long division sums.
Macavity, Macavity,
there’s no one like Macavity,
There never was a
Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare:
At whatever time
the deed took place, MACAVITY WASN’T THERE!
And they say that
all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known,
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more
than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their
operations: the Napoleon of
Crime.
Thomas Stearns
Eliot (1888 – 1965) was an essayist, a critic, a playwright and a pioneering
poet of the twentieth century. He attended Smith Academy in St. Louis and then
the Milton Academy in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University and
then left for France and the Sorbonne to study philosophy. Eliot returned to
Harvard and deepened his knowledge by reading Indian philosophy and studying
Sanskrit. He also finished his advanced degree at Harvard.
Some of his popular poems include ‘The Wasteland’, ‘Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, ‘Ash Wednesday’, ‘Four Quartets’, ‘Journey of the Magi’, ‘After Strange Gods’ and ‘Naming of Cats’. T.S. Eliot won the Order of Merit and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in the year 1948.
Warm Up:
A. A French proverb goes thus: ‘The dog may be wonderful prose, but only the cat is poetry.’ You may have observed that all animals possess a number of unique qualities. Fill in the columns with words and phrases associated with each of the following animals.
B. People admire some of these animal qualities. What are they? Have you noticed some of them in yourself or in others? Share your views with the class.
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