(1917 – 1977) He would not be a proper scion (such good New England stock!). He would not be a Harvard man (rather a “fugitive” at Kenyon College). He would not fight in the First World War (366 days in prison). He would not write Auden’s English (Lord Weary’s Castle). He would not abandon a precarious sanity (McLean’s Hospital). He would not disown the America he’d inherited and he would “not scare” (Life Studies, 1959). He would not translate properly (Imitations, 1961). He would not divorce poetry from personality (Notebooks, 1967–8, The Dolphin, Day by Day). He would be our greatest poet.