Poetry in Credo: British Poetry

From The Literature of Propaganda
Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, first published December 9, 1854, glorifies for posterity the doomed British cavalry charge at the October 25, 1854, Battle of Balaclava. Likely the best-known English literary work of the Crimean War, the poem is famous for its dramatization of the courageous sacrifice of those who participated in the charge, the “noble six hundred,” of whom more than half were killed, wounded, or captured in the battle and its immediate aftermath.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
 For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
 When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
 And murdered in her bed.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable
One of the smallest islands in Lough Gill, County Sligo. It is known around the world from one of W.B. YEATS's most popular poems, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’, from his collection The Rose (1893): "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, / And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles mad.

Poet, broadcaster, and writer on architecture, born in London, UK. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, but left university without a degree. He began to write for the Architectural Review and became general editor of the Shell Guides (1934).

Widely regarded as England's greatest woman poet. Although her poetry has now fallen into disfavour, it shows individuality of style and rich imagination. An experimental writer, she wrote ballads, political odes, allegories, sonnets, poetic dramas and an epic.

British poet best known for dramatic monologues such as “My Last Duchess,” “Fra Lippo Lippi,” and “The Bishop Orders His Tomb.” His remarkably broad and sound education was primarily the work of his artistic and scholarly parents—in particular his father, a London bank clerk of independent means.

English novelist and poet, born near Dorchester, one of the great English writers of the 19th century. The son of a stonemason, he derived a love of music from his father and a devotion to literature from his mother.

Northern Irish poet and critic; poetry collections include The Haw Lantern (1987); Nobel prize for literature 1995. In his early works, such as Death of a Naturalist (1966) and Door into the Dark (1969), Heaney is a lyrical nature poet.

Poet, born in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire, N England, UK. He studied at Cambridge, where he read English for two years, then switched to archaeology and anthropology for his final year.

Northern Irish poet, born in Belfast. He is noted for his low-key, socially committed but politically uncommitted verse. His works, published in Blind Fireworks (1929) and other collections, treat social issues in a detached, often ironic manner.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
English poet; sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Publication of some of her poems in her brother William's magazine the Germ was her only contribution to Pre-Raphaelite activities. She was a devout Anglican and lived the last 15 years of her life as a recluse in her home.

English poet. He was poet laureate 1850-92. His verse has a majestic, musical quality, and few poets have surpassed his precision and delicacy of language. His poems include The Lady of Shalott (1832), Morte d'Arthur (1842), the collection In Memoriam (1850), Maud (1855), and Idylls of the King (1859).

Welsh poet, b. Swansea. An extraordinarily individualistic writer, Thomas is ranked among the great 20th-century poets. He grew up in Swansea, the son of a teacher, but left school at 17 to become a journalist and moved to London two years later.

Irish writer. With his flamboyant style and quotable conversation, he dazzled London society and, on his lecture tour in 1882, the USA. He published his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, in 1891.

Born in Dublin, he spent two-thirds of his life out of Ireland. His father, John B. Yeats, was a lawyer turned painter, and in 1867 the family followed him to London, moving to the recently developed Bedford Park estate in Chiswick in 1879.