Cecil Day Lewis CBE (27th April 1904 – 22 May 1972) was an Anglo-Irish poet and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972. He is the father of actor Daniel Day Lewis.

He was a great admirer of Thomas Hardy and arranged to be buried near the author's grave at St Michael's Church in Stinsford, Dorset.

Birthday Poem for Thomas Hardy

By Cecil Day Lewis

Is it birthday weather for you, dear soul?
Is it fine your way,
With tall moon-daisies alight, and the mole
Busy, and elegant hares at play
By meadow paths where once you would stroll
In the flush of day?

I fancy the beasts and flowers there beguiled
By a visitation
That casts no shadow, a friend whose mild
Inquisitive glance lights with compassion,
Beyond the tomb, on all of this wild
And humbled creation.

It’s hard to believe a spirit could die
Of such generous glow,
Or to doubt that somewhere a bird-sharp eye
Still broods on the capers of men below,
A stern voice asks the Immortals why
They should plague us so.

Dear poet, wherever you are, I greet you.
Much irony, wrong,
Innocence you’d find here to tease or entreat you,
And many the fate-fires have tempered strong,
But none that in ripeness of soul could meet you
Or magic of song.

Great brow, frail form—gone. Yet you abide
In the shadow and sheen,
All the mellowing traits of a countryside
That nursed your tragi-comical scene;
And in us, warmer-hearted and brisker-eyed
Since you have been.

Cecil Day Lewis, 1948

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