Will it be so
again?
Cecil Day-Lewis
, ABOUT THE POET
Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972)
Day-Lewis ha
marriages, fi
Cecil Day-Lewis was of King and sub
He began his career as a Jill Balcon. F
Irish heritage, having schoolteacher, then moved were born fro
been born the son of a In 1927, he graduated on to the publishing marriages. H
minister and his wife in from Oxford University. industry before accepting a multiple ex
Ballintubbert, County position as a lecturer at affairs, durin
Laois. Cambridge University. most likely fa
more ch
Eventually, he obtained a
Poetry Professorship at
Despite his extensive Oxford before moving to
English education, he Harvard University in the
He was just two years old United States. For a while,
always considered himself
when his mother died, and right before World War II
Anglo-Irish, however when
his father relocated to broke out, he joined the
Ireland got independence communist party, and his
London, where he
from Britain, he chose poetry took on a decidedly
completed his education.
British citizenship over socialist flavour. But,
Irish. disillusionment crept in
swiftly, and he parted ways
with the socialists.
, The title of the poem
Will it be so again?
The title is a question, this is seen by the question mark at the end of the title. The content is unknown as it is
specific, hence the word ‘it’.
This question is asking, Will it happen again?
There is no answer to the question in the title, making it a rhetorical question. This causes the reader to conti
grabs their attention to figure out what ‘it’ is.
The word ‘again’ implies that it has happened before.
We have to read the poem to determine what ‘it’ is.
, The Poem
Will it be so again
That the brave, the gifted are lost from view,
And the empty, scheming men
Are left in peace their lunatic age to renew?
Will it be so again?
Must it be always so
That the best are chosen to fall and sleep
Like seeds, and we too slow
In claiming the earth they quicken, and the old usurpers reap
What they could not sow?
Will it be so again –
The jungle code and the hypocrite gesture?
A poppy wreath for the slain
And a cut-throat world for the living? that stale imposture
Played on us once again?
, Will it be as before –
Peace, with no heart or mind to ensure it,
Guttering down to war
Like a libertine to his grave? We should not be surprised: we knew it
Happen before.
Shall it be so again?
Call not upon the glorious dead
To be your witness then.
The living alone can nail to their promise the ones who said
It shall not be so again.
