Cecil Day Lewis

Anglo-Irish poet (1904-1972)

Cecil Day Lewis, CBE (27 April 190422 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.

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.

Quotes

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Tempt me no more, for I
Have known the lightning's hour,
The poet's inward pride,
The certainty of power.
 
Shall I be gone long?
For ever and a day
To whom there belong?
Ask the stone to say
Ask my song

Tempt Me No More (1933)

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From Feathers to Iron (1935)

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  • Do not expect again the phoenix hour,
    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.

Thou Shell of Death (1936)

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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)

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  • 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)

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

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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)

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"Is it far to go?" in Modern English poetry (1963) edited by N. Das Gupta, Vol. 2, p. 92
  • Shall I be gone long?
    For ever and a day
    To whom there belong?
    Ask the stone to say
    Ask my song.
  • 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)

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

Quotes about Cecil Day Lewis

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  • "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."
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