Refugee Blues first of ten poems grouped together in "Ten Songs", which also includes the above-mentioned "Calypso". 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
The Clocks begins well, with the discovery of a stranger in a suburban sitting-room, with four strange clocks all showing the same time; but thereafter the story, though as readable as ever, does tends to hang fire. Also there is one very corny item, the vital witness killed when on the point of disclosing crucial information, which is quite unworthy of Miss Christie." Maurice Richardson of "The Observer" (10 November 1963) concluded, "Not as zestful as usual. Plenty of ingenuity about the timing, though." Robert Barnard: "Lively, well-narrated, highly unlikely late specimen – you have to accept two spies and three murderers