Every­body knows The Owl and the Pussy­cat, the non­sense poem by Edward Lear. There’s no rule that impels its inclu­sion in the pri­ma­ry school cur­ricu­lum; it is just one of those pieces of our cul­ture that gets passed down and which every­one has heard by the time they’re ten. Per­haps by osmo­sis. Or more like­ly, its appeal to many a nurs­ery school assis­tant charged with enter­tain­ing a room­ful of chil­dren, due to its deli­cious use of lan­guage, rhyme, and imagery.

First pub­lished in 1871 as part of his book Non­sense Songs, Sto­ries, Botany, and Alpha­bets, Lear wrote the poem for the daugh­ter of a friend. And like that oth­er great Vic­to­ri­an pur­vey­or of non­sense verse, Lewis Car­roll, Lear had that exquis­ite tal­ent for choos­ing just the right made-up non­sense words. “Run­ci­ble”, for exam­ple, as in the phrase “which they ate with a run­ci­ble spoon”, was one such coinage, right up there with Lewis Carroll’s ‘galumph­ing’ and ‘fru­mious’ from Jab­ber­wocky. Lear went on to use this won­der­ful­ly mean­ing­less adjec­tive to describe his hat, a wall, and even his cat. “The Run­ci­ble Spoon” would be a great name for a café, wouldn’t it? In fact, there already is one: I came across this in the vil­lage of Hin­der­well, whilst on hol­i­day in Runswick Bay:

But is ‘The Owl and the Pussy­cat’ meant to mean any­thing? Is it sim­ply delight­ful fan­ta­sy with its owl and pussy­cat that can talk and sing songs, a pig that engages in finan­cial trans­ac­tions, and a turkey offi­ci­at­ing at a wed­ding? Should we read any­thing into the fact that they have to sail the seas for a year and a day, trav­el­ling to the land of the Bong-Tree, in order to get a ring? Or is it mak­ing a com­men­tary on Vic­to­ri­an soci­ety, sub­vert­ing its norms and mores? I don’t think we need to know. Sim­ply enjoy the ver­mo­nious use of words (ver­mo­nious? I just made it up, of course!).

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.