He was born Reginald Ernest Warner in Birmingham, England, and brought up mainly in Gloucestershire, where his father was a clergyman. He was educated at St. George's School in Harpenden, and at Wadham College, Oxford, where he associated with W. H. Auden, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Stephen Spender, and published in "Oxford Poetry". He obtained a 1st in Classical Moderations in 1925 and later graduated with a 3rd in English in 1928. He then spent time teaching, some of it in Egypt.