Cecil Day Lewis

Cecil Day Lewis, CBE (27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972) was an Irish poet, the British Poet Laureate between 1968 to 1972, and, under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake, a mystery writer. He was the father of the actor Daniel Day-Lewis and the TYV star Tamasin Day-Lewis.

Tempt Me No More (1933)



 * Tempt me no more, for I Have known the lightning's hour, The poet's inward pride, The certainty of power.

From Feathers to Iron (1935)
The triple-towered sky, the dove's complaining, Sudden the rain of gold and heart's first ease Traced under trees by the eldritch light of sundown.
 * Do not expect again the phoenix hour,

Thou Shell of Death (1936)

 * Using the pseudonym Nicholas Blake


 * Nigel's six feet sprawled all over the place; his gestures were nervous and little uncouth; a lock of sandy coloured hair dropping over his forehead, and the deceptive naïveté of his face in repose gave him a resemblance to an overgrown prep. schoolboy. His eyes were the same blue as his uncle's, but shortsighted and noncommittal. Yet there was an underlying similarity between the two. A latent, sardonic humor in their conversation, a friendliness and simple generosity in their smiles, and that impression of energy in reserve which is always given by those who possess an abundance of life directed towards consciously-realised aims.

Where are the War Poets? (1943)

 * They who in folly or mere greed Enslaved religion, markets, laws, Borrow our language now and bid Us to speak up in freedom's cause.


 * It is the logic of our times, No subject for immortal verse— That we who lived by honest dreams Defend the bad against the worse.

Birthday Poem for Thomas Hardy (1949)

 * The judgment of Peers : An Anthology of Poems about Poets'' (1949), p. 61 iss


 * Is it birthday weather for you, dear soul? Is it fine your way


 * It's hard to believe a spirit could die Of such generous glow

The Christmas Tree (1953)

 * The Apollo Anthology (1953) edited by Lucy Selwyn and Laurier Lister, p. 105


 * Put out the lights now! Look at the Tree, the rough tree dazzled In oriole plumes of flame, Tinselled with twinkling frost fire, tasselled With stars and moons


 * So feast your eyes now On mimic star and moon-cold bauble: Worlds may wither unseen, But the Christmas Tree is a tree of fable, A phoenix in evergreen

Is it far to go? (1963)

 * "Is it far to go?" in Modern English poetry (1963) edited by N. Das Gupta, Vol. 2, p. 92

For ever and a day To whom there belong? '''Ask the stone to say Ask my song.'''
 * Shall I be gone long?


 * Who will say farewell? The beating bell. Will anyone miss me? That I dare not tell — Quick, Rose, and kiss me.

Requiem for the Living (1964)
Saying what God alone could perfectly show — '''How selfhood begins with a walking away, And love is proved in the letting go. '''
 * I have had worse partings, but none that so Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
 * "Walking Away" (1962), p. 33

Quotes about Cecil Day Lewis

 * "The image," says C. Day Lewis in The Poetic Image, "is a method of asserting or reasserting spiritual control over the material." And he makes a very suggestive definition of what the critics have called "pure poetry" as "poetry whose meaning is deliberately concentrated within its images."
 * Muriel Rukeyser The Life of Poetry (1949)