6 ideas
Smart catalogs his cat Jeoffry's ordinary behaviors (washing, stretching, sharpening claws, rolling, hunting) as a ten-degree liturgical sequence performed to God each morning. Because the cat does exactly what cats do and does it fully, its routine counts as praise, with no special religious act required.
The poem holds that every creature glorifies its creator by fulfilling its own nature, not by imitating human piety. Worship comes from faithful enactment of what one is: a cat by being catlike, a flower by blooming, a poet by making verse.
The poem pairs 'Let' lines, which summon a person or creature to praise, with 'For' lines, which give a reason, observation, or personal testimony. This call-and-response lets invocation and justification build side by side, so each claim of praise arrives with its warrant or its private context.
Smart treats careful observation of one animal's specific movements as a way to understand the divine, rather than turning to abstract doctrine. Noticing precisely how Jeoffry leaps, purrs, or keeps the Lord's watch becomes knowledge of the order of creation.
The poem enumerates hundreds of named people, animals, plants, gems, and letters, each assigned a place in praise. The act of naming and listing works as worship because it honors particulars and insists that nothing in creation is too small to be included.
Smart wrote the poem while confined in an asylum for religious mania, with a cat as his companion. He recorded his own suffering and slander ('For I am under the same accusation with my Saviour') and folded that isolation directly into the praise, so affliction became material for devotion instead of an interruption to it.