Born in Ireland and brought up in England, Cecil Day-Lewis began to dedicate himself to poetry when at Oxford in the 1920s. During the 1930s he became closely associated with W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Louis MacNeice, poets whose espousal of left-wing causes was reflected in their writing. By 1935 he was a full-time writer and he also published his first detective novel under the name Nicholas Blake. C. Day-Lewis continued to write poetry and in 1951 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1968 and began to modernise the role. He died in 1972 and is buried in Stinford churchyard, near Thomas Hardy, whose poetry he greatly admired.

Sir Arthur Bliss (1891 – 1975) was an English composer and conductor. During the Second World War he was the Director of Music for the BBC. After the war he returned to work as a composer and was appointed Master of the Queen's Music.

This poem was composed by Day Lewis before he was Laureate in honour of the birth of Prince Andrew on 19 February 1960, later Duke of York. The poem was set to music by Arthur Bliss.

This presentation copy of the poem is bound in purple silk with gold tooling and white silk doublures. It contains a manuscript copy of the poem written out by C. Day Lewis, and a manuscript copy of the score by Bliss. The poem and score were also published for sale.

1 manuscript score. [2], 9 p. : music.