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
The Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade The Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade "The Revolutionists stop for Orangeade" is a poem from the second, 1931, edition of Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, "Harmonium". Although the poem's title is not atypical in being gaudy, it may be an exception to the rule that the titles of Stevens's poems are not guides to their content. The revolutionists are imploring their leader to let them stop singing in the sun, or at least to resume singing in the shade. And while the captain starts the singing in a voice rougher than a grinding shale, orangeade all around would not be