born April 27, 1904, Ballintubbert, County Leix, Ire.
died May 22, 1972, Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire, Eng.
Irish-born British poet.
Son of a clergyman, Day-Lewis studied at the University of Oxford and in the 1930s became part of a circle of left-wing poets centred on W.H. Auden , though he later turned to an individual lyricism expressed in traditional forms. His works include translations of Virgil 's Georgics (1940), Aeneid (1952), and Eclogues (1963) and the verse collections The Room (1965) and The Whispering Roots (1970). He also wrote the autobiography The Buried Day (1960) and several detective novels under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake. He became poet laureate of England in 1968. He was the father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis.