A collection of poetry from Cecil Day Lewis, Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death in 1972. Originally published in 1957, this collection shows how much his style had changed after having distanced himself from Auden. In 1951, he became only the second living writer (after TS Eliot) to be featured in the popular series of 'Penguin Poets' paperbacks. In his introduction, he wrote: 'Looking back over my verse of the last 20 years, I was struck by its lack of development - in the sense of one poetic phase emerging recognizably from the previous one and leading inevitably to the next: it would all be much tidier and more in accordance with critical specifications, were this not so. But my verse seems to me a series of fresh beginnings rather than a continuous line.'

Author Biography

Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972) was an Irish-born poet. He was Poet Laureate for Britain from 1968 until his death in 1972 and, under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake, a mystery writer. He is the father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis and documentary filmmaker and television chef Tamasin Day-Lewis. He wrote twenty detective novels as Nicholas Blake, most of them featuring Nigel Strangeways, a charming amateur sleuth who uses literary references to solve mysteries.