SOURCE: "Notes on Four Contemporary Writers: I. Cecil Day Lewis," in Personal Remarks, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1953, pp. 193-97.

Calling Day Lewis "a poet of the first importance," Strong opines in the following essay that, while Day Lewis's "phase of intense political consciousness" produced some forceful writing, "he was obeying his conscience, not his genius."

I want first of all to make clear the position from which I start. It is that Cecil Day Lewis is a poet of the first importance. To me, his work says more than that of any poet since Yeats. What he has accomplished is remarkable, and, to judge from his latest work, he promises even better things to come.

First of all, a very brief sketch of his development. It brings us at once to what I feel to be the cardinal fact about his work. He uses his whole life in his...