April 27, 1904

We recall C. Day-Lewis (April 27, 1904 to May 22, 1972) was the poet laureate of Britain from 1968 to 1972. This Oxford professor of poetry, also wrote detective novels, and translated ancient texts. All this conforms to a vision of England that is chimerical but powerful. Our excerpt below grounds expectations; we quote from a poem titled "Cat."

Tearaway kitten or staid mother of fifty,
Persian, Chinchilla, Siamese
Or backstreet brawler -you all have tiger in your blood
And eyes opaque as the sacred mysteries
...

Like poets you wrap your solitude around you
And catch your meaning unawares:
With consequential trot or frantic tarantella
You follow up your top secret affairs.
...

Some tropes border on the banal, as in, "eyes opaque as sacred mysteries."  The last stanza we quote echoes "Pangur Ban," the medieval text.  The lines from the 9th century: 

Your shining eye watches the wall;
My feeble eye is fixed on a book.
You rejoice, when your claws entrap a mouse;
I rejoice when my mind fathoms a problem.

enrich Day-Lewis's stanza.

Perhaps I confuse Day-Lewis's insistence on clarity for the mundane. Perhaps we should celebrate his graceful restatement of certain pictures.