Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                

UNLIMITED

The Oldie

The forgotten poet

In Children Leaving Home, a poem written at the end of his life for his two younger offspring, Tamasin and Daniel, the Anglo-Irish Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-72) posed the question ‘What shall I have to bequeath?’ His dispirited answer was ‘a sack of genes/I did not choose, some verse/Long out of fashion, a laurel wreath/Wilted…’

Time has proved him wrong. Half a century on from his death on 22nd May 1972, that same sack of genes has seen Daniel become

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Oldie

The Oldie3 min read
Music
DONIZETTI, MASCAGNI AND STANFORD AT THE WEXFORD FESTIVAL There's been no shortage of entertainments that take us backstage into the world of dream and disillusion where theatre folk live out their lives. Watched from the safety of a stalls seat, they
The Oldie3 min read
Always On Our Mind
Elvis Presley would have been 90 on January 8th 2025. I was first struck by him when I was a 13-year-old boy in Stockwell, in 1957, when his second film, Loving You, came out. The closing sequence, with Elvis wearing denims – which he regarded as wor
The Oldie3 min read
I Read The News Today – Oh Boy!
It is not this column's inclination –much less its desire – to frighten you unduly. Quite the reverse; its mission is to apply a dollop of soothing balm to the fractious soul in these wickedly alarming times. Yet, every now and again, when a threat l

Related Books & Audiobooks