HIS LAST POEM

CECIL DAY-LEWIS (1904-1972)

BRITISH POET LAUREATE (1968-1972)

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C. DAY LEWIS AT LEMMONS

by

Jamie Dedes

I discovered the Anglo-Irish poet Cecil Day-Lewis (C Day-Lewis) quite by accident the other day when I was preparing my Sunday news feature for the main site of an online poetry community with which I am involved. On the basis that we all benefit from knowing our roots and connections – no matter our occupation – I always start off with a snippet about a poet who either was born or died on the day of the posting. Cecil  Day-Lewis died on May 22 in 1972. He was the British Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death. There’s lots about him and his work that nags for my attention, but one poem really struck home.

At Lemmons (1972), according to the C Day Lewis website (HERE), was written by Day-Lewis on his deathbed at the home of Sir Kingsley William Amis (1922-1995), the English poet, novelist, critic, and educator. Amis is quoted as saying that, “At no time did Cecil mention death. My own strong feeling is that he came to draw his own conclusions from his physical decline and increasingly severe – though happily intermittent – bouts of pain, but, out of kindness and abnegation of self, chose not to discuss the matter.” This last poem, which demonstrates a wonderful grace and acceptance, was published posthumously.

AT LEMMONS

by

C Day Lewis

Above my table three magnolia flowers

Utter their silent requiems.

Through the window I see your elms

In labour with the racking storm

Giving it shape in April’s shifty airs.

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Up there sky boils from a brew of cloud

To blue gleam, sunblast, then darkens again.

No respite is allowed

The watching eye, the natural agony.

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Below is the calm a loved house breeds

Where four have come together to dwell

–            Two write, one paints, the fourth invents –

Each pursuing a natural bent

But less through nature’s formative travail

Than each in his own humour finding the self he needs.

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Round me all is amenity, a bloom of

Magnolia uttering its requiems,

A climate of acceptance.  Very well

I accept my weakness with my friends’

Good natures sweetening each day my sick room.

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Photo credit ~ Copyrighted cover art (fair use) for Peter Stanford’s biography of Day-Lewis,C Day-Lewis, a Life. Definitely on my reading list.