If you can keep your paws when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when humans doubt you,
And recognise that they’re inferior too;
If you can wait for food and not resent it,
Or break into their room in the small hours,
Or being cuddled, don’t give way to cuddling,
And yet don’t eat those toxic lily flowers:
If you can dream of catching Fluttering Creatures,
With or without the help of felines near;
If you can meet with faithless Mr B*stard,
And treat that one impostor without fear;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve yowlèd
Twisted by Catmother to catch you out,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, foulèd,
And take deep breaths and not give in to doubt:
If you can make one heap of all your meeses*
And risk it on one game of jump-the-fence,
And lose, and yet refrain from going to pieces
And never let the humans know you’re tense;
If you can force your tail and nose and whiskers
To serve your cause long after they are gone,
And hold on fast with every last incisor;
Exert your Bloody-Mindedness: be strong!
If you can hiss at dogs and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Me—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can swipe you,
If comrades count with you, but none too much;
If humans fill the sad and empty food bowl
With sixty seconds’ worth of meat to nom,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Cat, my son!
*As all cats know, our grammar runs thus: one meese, several meeses.