The Ballad of Toby and Lark — John M. Daniel

Toby is a simple farm boy, and Lark is the gardener he loves. Lark loves a handsome cat, also named Toby. Toby and Toby are the same. Set in an unnamed preindustrial society, this is the story of a shy young man named Toby, who's in love with a lovely gardener named Lark, who's twice his age. Lark is wooed and won by Toby's abusive Uncle Pewter. He takes his troubles to Mistress Mangle, a witch in the woods, and she turns him into a proud and handsome cat. Toby returns to the village and to Lark's farm, where she takes him in and names him Toby, after the friend who disappeared. Pewter kicks him out, and he returns to Mistress Mangle, where, with the help of a flirtatious female cat named Vixen, they plot their revenge. All works out in the end: Toby (the cat) is reunited with Lark. By that time Lark has taken a new partner, a man named Tom, and Toby comes to love him as well. The story is told in verse, made up of stanzas combining iambic septameter and iambic tetrameter.