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Cecil Day-Lewis--Irish/British
Born in Ireland in 1904, Day-Lewis was a poet, critic and educator. Educated at Wadham College, Oxford, Day-Lewis supplemented his poetry income by writing twenty crime novels under the name of Nicholas Blake. During the Second World War he joined the Ministry of Information of the British government as a publications editor. After the war, he continued his editing with Chatto and Windus publishers. He taught poetry at Oxford. In 1968, Queen Elizabeth appointed him Poet Laureate of England, a post he held until his death in 1972. He is the father of the Academy Award-winning actor, Daniel Day-Lewis.
Where are the war poets?
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.
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.
No subject for immortal verse –
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.