Cecil Day Lewis Quotes (12 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Cecil Day Lewis: 12 quotes1 like

Famous Cecil Day Lewis Quotes

“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.”

Cecil Day Lewis

Where are the War Poets? (1943)

“Shall I be gone long?
For ever and a day
To whom there belong?
Ask the stone to say
Ask my song.”

Cecil Day Lewis

Is it far to go? (1963)

“How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.”

Cecil Day Lewis

"Walking Away" (1962), p. 33
Requiem for the Living (1964)
Context: I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show —
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

“Who will say farewell?
The beating bell.
Will anyone miss me?
That I dare not tell —
Quick, Rose, and kiss me.”

Cecil Day Lewis

Is it far to go? (1963)

“Nigel's six feet sprawled all over the place; his gestures were nervous and little uncouth; a lock of sandy coloured hair dropping over his forehead, and the deceptive naïveté of his face in repose gave him a resemblance to an overgrown prep. schoolboy. His eyes were the same blue as his uncle's, but shortsighted and noncommittal. Yet there was an underlying similarity between the two. A latent, sardonic humor in their conversation, a friendliness and simple generosity in their smiles, and that impression of energy in reserve which is always given by those who possess an abundance of life directed towards consciously-realised aims.”

Cecil Day Lewis

Thou Shell of Death (1936)

“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.”

Cecil Day Lewis

Where are the War Poets? (1943)

“Tempt me no more, for I
Have known the lightning's hour,
The poet's inward pride,
The certainty of power.”

Cecil Day Lewis

Tempt Me No More (1933)