Cat!

Program Notes

Written for my radiant and perfectly flamboyant friend Christina Acton, this is a silly ode to the grungey, old cat in your neighbourhood with a torn ear or a missing eye. This cat is, by every definition, ugly, but you know that somewhere amid all that ratty fur, there lies stories of joy that this creature has brought to the lives of the local townsfolk. There is beauty in its aged and weathered body, because you know that if he's letting you pet him he doesn't care how you look.

This song is lovingly dedicated to Donald, a Sackville cat. While his ears may be intact and he still has two eyes, he embodies the simple joy that an old cat can bring into our lives.

*the clarinet part comes with the original e-flat version and a transposed b-flat version. If possible, e-flat clarinet is preferred.

Text

To Mrs. Reynolds' Cat - John Keats (1795–1821)

Cat! who hast passed thy grand climacteric,

How many mice and rats hast in thy days

Destroyed? How many tit-bits stolen?

Gaze With those bright languid segments green, and prick

Those velvet ears—but prithee do not stick

Thy latent talons in me, and up-raise

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 nicked 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 enteredst on glass-bottled wall.