Day-Lewis

CECIL DAY-LEWIS (1904 - 1972)

Lewis was born in Ireland and after Oxford taught in various schools in England and Scotland. He made his name as a poet in the 1930s and formed part of the disparaging composite 'MacSpaunday' which also covered MacNeice, Spender and Auden, as young, politically committed poets of that period.

Day-Lewis was a friend of Auden and accompanied him on a trip to Appletreewick in the Yorkshire Pennines, as well as addressing poems to him. The mining and general industrial references in his work were sufficient to link him with the 'pylon school' of the 1930s, but his locations are much less precise than Auden's. A well-known poem of 1931, with Old English alliteration begins:

As one who wanders into old workings
Dazed by the noonday, desiring coolness,
Has found retreat barred by fall of rockface;
Gropes through galleries where granite bruises
Taut palm and panic patters close at heel

But the eventual 'message' here as elsewhere is over-explicit and didactic; the skilful verse moves us less than Auden's disturbing poems of the same period. Day-Lewis's major collection The Magic Mountain (1933) is dedicated to Auden, who appears as Nigel Strangeways in the detective novels which Day-Lewis wrote at this time under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake.

In 1968, Lewis was appointed Poet Laureate and in his official capacity wrote poems conscientiously to public commission and for causes that interested him, not just for royal events. One of these in defence of the environment, was published by the Mid-Northumberland Arts group (MidNAG) in Ashington for whom Day-Lewis gave a reading. It begins:

Animal, fish, fowl
Share with man the lease
And limits of creation.

Another was for the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette and celebrated the birth of the new County Borough of Teesside on 1 April 1968. His wife Jill Balcon recalls his grin as he said: 'If I can write some verses on the amalgamation of six Teesside boroughs I shall feel I've really achieved something.'

HAIL, TEESSIDE!
Old ironmasters and their iron men
With northern fire, grit, enterprise began it
A hundred years ago. Later, we scan it -
Desolate homesteads welded into one,
Hamlets grown up to towns, deep anchorage
Gouged out of sand, wastes blossoming with the fierce
White rose of foundries. So the pioneers
Printed their work on nature's open page.
Their steel made bridges from Sydney to Menai;
Their ships networked the sea. gain was in view
But inch by inch out of the gain there grew
A greater thing - sense of community.
Bridges are for drawing men together
By closing gaps. Could those rough ghosts return,
They'd find a world of difference, but discern
That here is the same breed of men and weather.
You are bridge-builders still. Only, today
You draw six towns into a visioned O,
Spanning from town to town the ebb and flow
Of destiny. A dream is realised. May
The northern kindliness and northern pride
see, as your forebears would, the future in it.
Here a new span - our lives shall underpin it
And earn fresh honours for our own Teesside.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
CECIL DAY-LEWIS (1904 - 1972) Lewis was born in Ireland and after Oxford taught in various schools in England and Scotland. He made his name as a poet in the 1930s and formed part of the disparaging composite 'MacSpaunday' which also covered MacNeice, Spender and Auden, as young, politically committed poets of that period. Day-Lewis was a friend of Auden and accompanied him on a trip to Appletreewick in the Yorkshire Pennines, as well as addressing poems to him. The mining and general industrial references in his work were sufficient to link him with the 'pylon school' of the 1930s, but his locations are much less precise than Auden's. A well-known poem of 1931, with Old English alliteration begins: As one who wanders into old workings Dazed by the noonday, desiring coolness, Has found retreat barred by fall of rockface; Gropes through galleries where granite bruises Taut palm and panic patters close at heel But the eventual 'message' here as elsewhere is over-explicit and didactic; the skilful verse moves us less than Auden's disturbing poems of the same period. Day-Lewis's major collection The Magic Mountain (1933) is dedicated to Auden, who appears as Nigel Strangeways in the detective novels which Day-Lewis wrote at this time under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake. In 1968, Lewis was appointed Poet Laureate and in his official capacity wrote poems conscientiously to public commission and for causes that interested him, not just for royal events. One of these in defence of the environment, was published by the Mid-Northumberland Arts group (MidNAG) in Ashington for whom Day-Lewis gave a reading. It begins: Animal, fish, fowl Share with man the lease And limits of creation. Another was for the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette and celebrated the birth of the new County Borough of Teesside on 1 April 1968. His wife Jill Balcon recalls his grin as he said: 'If I can write some verses on the amalgamation of six Teesside boroughs I shall feel I've really achieved something.' HAIL, TEESSIDE! Old ironmasters and their iron men With northern fire, grit, enterprise began it A hundred years ago. Later, we scan it - Desolate homesteads welded into one, Hamlets grown up to towns, deep anchorage Gouged out of sand, wastes blossoming with the fierce White rose of foundries. So the pioneers Printed their work on nature's open page. Their steel made bridges from Sydney to Menai; Their ships networked the sea. gain was in view But inch by inch out of the gain there grew A greater thing - sense of community. Bridges are for drawing men together By closing gaps. Could those rough ghosts return, They'd find a world of difference, but discern That here is the same breed of men and weather. You are bridge-builders still. Only, today You draw six towns into a visioned O, Spanning from town to town the ebb and flow Of destiny. A dream is realised. May The northern kindliness and northern pride see, as your forebears would, the future in it. Here a new span - our lives shall underpin it And earn fresh honours for our own Teesside.
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