“Jellicle Cats are black and whiteJellicle Cats are rather smallJellicle Cats are merry and brightAnd pleasant to hear when they caterwaul.Jellicle Cats have cheerful faces,Jellicle Cats have bright black eyes;They like to practise their airs and gracesAnd wait for the Jellicle Moon to rise.”

“With Cats, some say, one rule is true:Don’t speak till you are spoken to.Myself, I do not hold with that —I say, you should ad-dress a Cat.But always keep in mind that heResents familiarity.I bow, and taking off my hat,Ad-dress him in this form: O Cat!But if he is the Cat next door,Whom I have often met before(He comes to see me in my flat)I greet him with an oopsa Cat!I think I've heard them call him James —But we've not got so far as names.”

“Before a Cat will condescendTo treat you as a trusted friend,Some little token of esteemIs needed, like a dish of cream;And you might now and then supplySome caviare, or Strassburg Pie,Some potted grouse, or salmon paste —He's sure to have his personal taste.(I know a Cat, who makes a habitOf eating nothing else but rabbit,And when he's finished, licks his pawsSo's not to waste the onion sauce.)A Cat's entitled to expectThese evidences of respect.And so in time you reach your aim,And finally call him by his name.”

“Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones — In fact, he's remarkably fat.He doesn't haunt pubs — he has eight or nine clubs,For he's the St. James's Street Cat!He's the Cat we all greet as he walks down the streetIn his coat of fastidious black:No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousersOr such an impeccable back.In the whole of St. James's the smartest of names isThe name of this Brummell of Cats;And we're all of us proud to be nodded or bowed toBy Bustopher Jones in white spats!”

“I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;Her coat is one of the tabby kind,with tiger stripes and lepard spots.”

“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 contemplationOf the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:His ineffable effableEffanineffableDeep and inscrutable singular Name.”

“Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door.His name, as I ought to have told you before,Is really Asparagus. That's such a fussTo pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus.His coat's very shabby, he's thin as a rake,And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake.Yet he was, in his youth, quite the smartest of Cats —But no longer a terror to mice or to rats.For he isn't the Cat that he was in his prime;Though his name was quite famous, he says, in his time.And whenever he joins his friends at their club(which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub)He loves to regale them, if someone else pays,With anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days.For he once was a Star of the highest degree —He has acted with Irving, he's acted with Tree.And he likes to relate his success on the Halls,Where the Gallery once gave him seven cat-calls.But his grandest creation, as he loves to tell,Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.”