T.S. Elliot

T.S. Elliot

Daylight, see the dew on a sunflower
And a rose that is fading
Roses wither away
Like the sunflower I yearn to turn my face to the dawn
I am waiting for the day
Now Old Deuteronomy, just before dawn
Through a silence you feel you could cut with a knife
Announces the cat who can now be reborn
And come back to a different Jellicle life
Memory, turn your face to the moonlight
Let your memory lead you
Open up, enter in
If you find there the meaning of what happiness is
Then a new life will begin
Memory, all alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember a time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again
Burnt out ends of smoky days
The stale cold smell of morning
The streetlamp dies, another night is over
Another day is dawning
Daylight, I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I must not give in
When the dawn comes tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin
Sunlight, through the trees in summer
Endless masquerading
Like a flower as the dawn is breaking
The memory is fading
Touch me, it’s so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me you’ll understand what happiness is
Look, a new day has begun

(c) T.S. Elliot, additional material written by Trevor Nunn and Richard Stilgoe
Memory – Andrew Lloyd Webber, Trevor Nunn and T. S. Eliot (Lyrics and Chords)
Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was an Anglo-American poet, playwright, and literary critic, arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. The poem above was taken from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a book that inspired the musical Cats. The lyrics, written by Cats director Trevor Nunn, was based on T. S. Eliot’s poems “Preludes” and “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”

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The Moments of Happiness

We had the experience but missed the meaning
And approach to the meaning restores the experience
In a different form beyond any meaning we can assign to happiness
The past experience revived in the meaning
Is not the experience of one life only
But of many generations
Not forgetting something that is probably quite ineffable

Moonlight
Turn your face to the moonlight
Let your memory lead you
Open up enter in
If you find there the meaning of what happiness is
Then a new life will begin

T.S. Elliot, additional material written by Trevor Nunn and Richard Stilgoe