TABBY THE PIPER

As Tabby lay basking one day in the sun,
A-longing for something to eat,
He thought to himself 'twould be capital fun
To play on a pipe for his meat.

So Tabby, who was an ingenious cat,
Ran off to his home in the mews,
Where he put on a coat and a wide-awake hat,
And breeches and stockings and shoes.

And then in the road, with his pipe in his mouth,
He played such a comical air,
That he startled the folk in the north and the south,
And the east and the west of the square.

From Piggy the porter he got but a laugh,
Ducky the housemaid a quack,
And Carlo the groom gave him nothing but chaff,
So Tabby went dinnerless back.

So people who sometimes, led on by conceit,
Attempt what they cannot well do,
A warning should take from poor Tabby's defeat,
Or they may get ridiculed too.