A very small girl, And a very small cat, Went to the garden And sat, and sat.
They sat by the quince bush That grandmother bought. Each looked at a white rose, And thought, and thought.
They stared at the garden, But there was not heard All afternoon A mew or a word.
A tinkly bell rang; It broke their dream; They went to get supper, And a saucer of cream.
A little girl and a little cat spend an afternoon in the garden, and almost nothing happens. That's the charm of it. They sit beside a quince bush, each gazing at a white rose, and the repeated words "sat, and sat" and "thought, and thought" make the time feel slow and drowsy, as if the afternoon were stretching out around them.
The speaker doesn't tell us what the pair are thinking, and that mystery is part of the fun. Girl and cat seem oddly alike: both quiet, both absorbed, neither making "a mew or a word." The speaker watches them with gentle amusement and obvious fondness, treating their silence as something almost solemn.
Then a bell rings, the spell breaks, and the ordinary world returns with supper and a saucer of cream. The mood is calm, sweet, and a little dreamy, a snapshot of childhood stillness where simply sitting and looking counts as a whole adventure.