"Reassured by Walter Lippmann / And sustained by Haig and Haig": Who wrote these lines?

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April 25, 2014

"Reassured by Walter Lippmann / And sustained by Haig and Haig": Who wrote these lines?

A reader has written to us asking if we know the author and title of a poem that ends

Reassured by Walter Lippmann
And sustained by Haig and Haig.

I had to admit that I don't know but would ask. So please, if you know, tell me, and I'll pass along the "news that stays new." My only hint is that my correspondent came across this poem way back in 1941, during his freshman year in college. To me the lines sound like Auden, or someone trying to sound like Auden -- or possibly Weldon Kees. Lippmann was the most popular high-brow political columnist of his time, and Haig and Haig is the name of a Scotch. -- DL

Posted by The Best American Poetry on April 25, 2014 at 02:34 PM in Brainteasers | Permalink

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"Lively and affectionate" Publisher's Weekly. Now in paperback.Click image to order your copy.

Radio

I left it
on when I
left the house
for the pleasure
of coming back
ten hours later
to the greatness
of Teddy Wilson
"After You've Gone"
on the piano
in the corner
of the bedroom
as I enter
in the dark

from New and Selected Poems by David Lehman