Some of the best loved British poetry from over the years

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poetry / literature / writing / auden / shakespeare / britain / gb / uk

Warning
A humorous poem concerning retirement plans!
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If
One of the most popular poems of all time in the UK: Kipling’s tribute to traditional British virtue
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Sonnet CXVI
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds": Shakespeare’s definition of love
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Sonnet XVIII
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?": Shakespeare’s famous love sonnet
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O what is that sound
A ballad of fear and trepidation
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O tell me the truth about love
Light hearted musings on love
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Funeral blues
Auden’s exploration and expression of grief
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The unknown citizen
Auden’s brilliantly satirical epitaph of a man described exclusively from the point of view of government organisations
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Marvell
A collection of some of Andrew Marvell's finest works
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The Owl and the Pussy Cat
Edward Lear’s whimsical childhood classic
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The British
Benjamin Zephaniah sums up British society
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Who's Who
Zephaniah’s take on roles and stereotypes
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SOS (Save Our Sons)


We Black men of England
Too proud to cry for shame,
Let's cry a sea
Cry publicly,
Expose our very pain,
For Babylon the bandit
Is on our sisters trail,
The bad talk
And the cool walk
Will not keep us out of jail.

We Black men of England
Our guns are killing us,
How dare we?
Now hear me
How great is dangerous?
There's a fascist and a druggist
Out to get our kith and kin,
Let silent guns
Save our sons
The power is within.

We Black men of England
Excel as if in sport
For our people,
Because some people
Want to see our face in court,
When we Black men of England
Look the mirror in the face,
Through our sisters eyes
We men shall rise
As proud sons of our race.
 
Benjamin Zephaniah
The Sun Rising
John Donne's lazy, cheeky take on love
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The Flea
Donne’s attempt to seduce his lover using a particularly interesting conceit
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Sonnets from the Portuguese: XLIII
"How do I love thee?": Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s immortal love poem
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Porphyria's Lover
Love, possession, adultery – and murder
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My Last Duchess
Looking at a portrait exposes the duke for the proud, unattractive character he is
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They are all gone into the world of light!
Vaughan’s beautiful, haunting poem regarding his longing for heaven
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Not waving but drowning
Stevie Smith’s famous poem about a misinterpreted plea for help
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I wandered lonely as a cloud
Wordsworth’s famous poem, inspired by daffodils seen during a walk he took with his sister in the Lake District
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The Lady of Shalott
Tennyson’s take on life as an artist: to create art celebrating it or simply live it?
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Do not go gentle into that good night
One of Dylan Thomas’ finest works, as he tries to convince his ailing father to fight against death
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She walks in beauty
Byron’s celebration of the subject’s beauty
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Kubla Khan
The result of an opium-induced dream: a poem about the temperamental nature of inspiration
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Remember
Rossetti’s thoughts on impending separation as the result of death
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I Remember, I Remember
Larkin’s humorous satire of the depiction of a writer’s childhood
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High Windows
The agnostic world view of Philip Larkin
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This be the verse
Larkin’s memorable comment upon parents
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Ted Hughes
A collection of poetry by Ted Hughes
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