Owl and the Pussy-Cat, The, is a poem for children written by the English writer and artist Edward Lear. It was published in a collection entitled Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets (1871) and has become a classic of children’s literature. In a language rich with inventive energy and musical rhythms, Lear tells a love story based on the improbable pairing of an owl and a pussy-cat.
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! O 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.
Some people consider this verse, like so much of Lear’s other work, to be “nonsense.” However, there is an underlying strain of romantic yearning in this love story of two mismatched lovers who must sail away to another land to find happiness. Lear himself, who never married, was a lonely man and suffered from depression for much of his life. Although he made hundreds of light-hearted poems and drawings for children, critics have detected undercurrents of melancholy in his tales of slightly eccentric, lonely, or outcast characters.
As a writer, however, Lear always maintained a lightness of tone. “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” is an example of his ability to delight readers, both young and adult, with a combination of eccentric humor and deeper emotional truthfulness.
See also Limerick.
