Refugee Blues Refugee Blues "Refugee Blues" is a poem by W. H. Auden, written in 1939, one of a number of poems Auden wrote in the mid- to late-1930s in blues and other popular metres, for example the meter he used in his love poem "Calypso", written around the same time. The poem dramatizes the condition of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in the years before World War II, especially the indifference and antagonism they faced when seeking asylum in the democracies of the period. In some later editions of Auden's poetry, the poem is not identified by name but is the
Funeral Blues for the correct reading "wood"; this error does not occur in any other edition. In Auden's "Collected Poetry" (1945) "Funeral Blues" is poem XXX in the section "Songs and Other Musical Pieces". In his "Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957" (1966), it is poem IX in the section "Twelve Songs" in Part II, "1933–1938"; the same numbering appears in his posthumous "Collected Poems" (1976, 1991, 2007). Britten wrote a setting of the poem for chorus and instrumental group as part of his incidental music for the first production of "The Ascent of F6" in 1937, and later arranged it for solo voice