Tiddles - Adrian Legg

Adrian Legg's "Tiddles", transcribed here because nobody else has ever transcribed it, according to Google.

My auntie Nell noticed a smell coming from inside the shed.
She opened the door and there on the floor was Tiddles the cat, quite dead.

His fur was no longer glossy and sleek;
he'd obviously been there for more than a week.

Those eyes that had blazed were now rather glazed;
his former ferocity had lost its velocity--
his aggressive propensities had lost their intensities.

He owed his demise to a strategic prize:
a quest for a tactical edge that was practical in the war on the Dalmatian next door,
whose advantage of size would be less with surprise.

A furious dash! A vicious slash across the snout!
A quick about and a rapid retreat 'ere the dog gained his feet,
back to the hole in the side of the shed from whence the guerrilla war would commence.

There was no fence between the pair, at the point where the shed then stood.
One day an attack was decided. The Dalmatian next door was derided.
Tail in the air Tiddles stalked round the wall and sprayed on the carpet that graced next door's hall.

Then entered the shed through the open door and lay on the floor to lurk and to smirk
and prepare his attack while the dog had a smack for letting the cat in to pee on the mat.

But Tiddles was reckless; his planning was feckless.
The door closed behind him and no-one could find him.
The hole had been covered! Next door had discovered the dog's bloodied snout
and the secret way out. They couldn't take that; the cat was in trouble--
they plugged up the gap with a pile of rubble.

Our hero was trapped and e'en though he napped to save strength,
and then wailed at great length,
the garden activities and leisure proclivities of Nell and her tribe made them deaf to appeals...
until his squeals weakened and passed,
as he starved
at the last.

and laid there all stiff
until finally the whiff
of his decomposition
laid plain his condition
proclaimed his location
and last tribulation

They buried him quick, but not very deep,
and a dreadful trick disturbed his last sleep.
Next door's Dalmatian achieved excavation!
A rude exhumation that prompted cremation.

Now times, when it's windy, Tiddles' chindy
will prowl in the night in search of a fight
and howl at the light when the moon is bright.

And next door's Dalmation, still at his station lets a tear fall and splash on the floor.
His foe was so small but waged such a war -- he got into Valhalla for deeds of great valor.
No mean feat, for a creature so neat. Besides, Norsemen have feelings, and were not just horsemen with dealings in might;
they too need creatures that purr in their lap: gentle in features, appealing, and light.

And Tiddles in glory will long tell his story:
"Tiddles the Bold!" in letters of gold will hang in the sky for every cat's eye
to see and remember that day in September when Tiddles discovered the hole had been covered

and the ninth of his lives
was finally
smothered