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 cannoThelp 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! "