Gus: The Theatre Cat by T. S. Eliot

(an excerpt… for the full poem, go here)

“I have played,” so he says, “every possible part, And I used to know seventy speeches by heart. I’d extemporize back-chat, I knew how to gag, And I knew how to let the cat out of the bag. I knew how to act with my back and my tail; With an hour of rehearsal, I never could fail. I’d a voice that would soften the hardest of hearts, Whether I took the lead, or in character parts. I have sat by the bedside of poor Little Nell; When the Curfew was rung, then I swung on the bell. In the Pantomime season I never fell flat, And I once understudied Dick Whittington’s Cat. But my grandest creation, as history will tell, Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.”