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 Christopher Isherwood. The 1938 version was written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson in a setting by Benjamin Britten. This version was first published in the anthology "The Year's Poetry, 1938", compiled by Denys Kilham Roberts and Geoffrey Grigson (London, 1938). Auden then included it in his book "Another Time" (New York, 1940) as one of four poems headed "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson"; the poem itself was titled "Funeral Blues" in this edition. (Auden never gave the poem any other title.) The text in the British edition of "Another Time" has a misprint, showing "woods"