The Music of the Future
The politest musician that ever was seen
Was Montague Meyerbeer Mendelssohn Green.
So extremely polite he would take off his hat
Whenever he happened to meet with a cat.
“It’s not that I’m partial to cats,” he’d explain;
“Their music to me is unspeakable pain.
There’s nothing that causes my flesh so to crawl
As when they perform a G-flat caterwaul.
Yet I cannot help feeling—in spite of their din—
When I hear at a concert the first violin
Interpret some exquisite thing of my own,
If it were not for cat gut I’d never be known.
And so, when I bow as you see to a cat,
It is n’t to her that I take off my hat;
But to fugues and sonatas that possibly hide
Uncomposed in her—well—in her tuneful inside!”