The fat cat on the mat
   may seem to dream
 of nice mice that suffice
   for him, or cream;
 but he free, maybe,
   walks in thought
 unbowed, proud, where loud
   roared and fought
 his kin, lean and slim,
   or deep in den
 in the East feasted on beasts
   and tender men.
 The giant lion with iron
   claw in paw,
 and huge ruthless tooth
   in gory jaw;
 the pard dark-starred,
   fleet upon feet,
 that oft soft from aloft
   leaps upon his meat
 where woods loom in gloom --
   far now they be,
   fierce and free,
   and tamed is he;
 but fat cat on the mat
   kept as a pet
   he does not forget.

A beautiful poem that’s a bit more than it seems. The Red Book has several verses, some of which figure in the Lord of the Rings, or in the attached stories / preludes / interludes and such. Others are just scrawled in the margins, for possible inclusion. JRR had scribbled “SG” in the margin when he wrote the poem, suggesting that he meant to attribute it to Sam Gamgee. The poem is also fairly traditional hobbit poetry (which deals a lot with birds and beasts): rhythmic, with frequent alliteration and assonance, making for an excellent nursery-rhyme sort of singalong song.

Still, it makes you think. Contrast a cute cat sleeping in front of a fire with a wild, roaring and dangerous lion - and then have Tolkien solemnly inform you in the last line that the cat hasn’t forgotten her wild ancestry…

— Suresh

Thomas adds

Just a word on prosody: “Cat” may seem on first reading to be merely a ‘hobbit nursery-rhyme’, but the technical mastery it displays is nothing short of staggering. The even-numbered lines rhyme with each other and also internally; the odd-numbered ones have internal triple rhymes. And all this is done in lines of two and three feet respectively, leaving barely any room for error; every single word (other than the placeholders - prepositions conjunctions and auxiliaries) seems to be part of the rhyme scheme. Incredible.

Minstrels Links

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien:
Poem #4, The Road Goes Ever On
Poem #46, Lament for Boromir
Poem #93, Eärendil was a mariner
Poem #142, He chanted a song of wizardry
Poem #220, Lament for Eorl the Young
Poem #257, Three Rings for the Elven Kings
Poem #318, Tall ships and tall kings
Poem #370, Troll sat alone on his seat of stone
Poem #440, Bregalad’s Lament
Poem #643, The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon
Poem #736, The world was young, the mountains green

Cats, practical and otherwise:
Poem #165, The Owl and the Pussy-Cat – Edward Lear
Poem #167, Pangur Ban – Anon. (Irish, 8th century)
Poem #258, Macavity: The Mystery Cat – T. S. Eliot
Poem #273, How a Cat Was Annoyed and a Poet Was Booted – Guy Wetmore Carryl
Poem #282, Fog – Carl Sandburg
Poem #401, To a Cat – Jorge Luis Borges
Poem #572, Mort aux Chats – Peter Porter
Poem #574, Growltiger’s Last Stand – T. S. Eliot
Poem #575, To Mrs Reynolds’ Cat – John Keats
Poem #577, The Cat and the Moon – William Butler Yeats
Poem #659, Poem – William Carlos Williams
Poem #660, On a Night of Snow – Elizabeth Coatsworth
Poem #661, Jubilate Agno – Christopher Smart
Poem #662, Cat – Jibanananda Das
Poem #663, A Child’s Nightmare – Robert Graves
Poem #674, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers – Adrienne Rich
Poem #727, Milk for the Cat – Harold Monro
Poem #955, Gus: The Theatre Cat – T. S. Eliot