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Jellicle Cats Come out Tonight

Today marks the 1888 birth of author T.S. Eliot!

T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot grew up in St. Louis, studied at Harvard, and transplanted himself into British society, where he became a part of a circle of experimental writers that included Ezra Pound and Virginia Woolf. His masterwork "The Waste Land" is generally regarded as the most significant work of Modernist poetry, and in 1948, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Taking a break from his bleak visions of fragmented modern society, Eliot wrote Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats in 1936. It was later transformed into a wildly popular musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Eliot's whimsical poem "Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat" adds another dimension to Rowland Lyon's block print!

SKIMBLESHANKS: THE RAILWAY CAT

There's a whisper down the line at 11.39
When the Night Mail's ready to depart,
Saying "Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
We must find him or the train can't start."
All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster's daughters
They are searching high and low,
Saying "Skimble where is Skimble for unless he's very nimble
Then the Night Mail just can't go."
At 11.42 then the signal's nearly due
And the passengers are frantic to a man—
Then Skimble will appear and he'll saunter to the rear:
He's been busy in the luggage van!
He gives one flash of his glass-green eyes
 And the signal goes "All Clear!"
 And we're off at last for the northern part
 Of the Northern Hemisphere!

Pictured: Rowland Lyon, 1904–1966, That Cat, about 1930–1945, linoleum cut, 9 x 7 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist.