Famous Devonshire Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Devonshire poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous devonshire poems. These examples illustrate what a famous devonshire poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Devonshire Street W.1

by John Betjeman
 The heavy mahogany door with its wrought-iron screen
 Shuts. And the sound is rich, sympathetic, discreet. 
The sun still shines on this eighteenth-century scene
 With Edwardian faience adornment -- Devonshire Street. 

No hope. And the X-ray photographs under his arm
 Confirm the message. His wife stands timidly by.
The opposite brick-built house looks lofty and calm
 Its chimneys steady against...Read more of this...

A Thought or Two on Reading Pomfrets

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 I have been reading Pomfret's "Choice" this spring, 
A pretty kind of--sort of--kind of thing, 
Not much a verse, and poem none at all, 
Yet, as they say, extremely natural. 
And yet I know not. There's an art in pies, 
In raising crusts as well as galleries; 
And he's the poet, more or less, who knows 
The charm that...Read more of this...

Cupid Sleeping

by Mary Darby Robinson
 [Inscribed to Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire.]


CLOSE in a woodbine's tangled shade, 
The BLOOMING GOD asleep was laid; 
His brows with mossy roses crown'd; 
His golden darts lay scatter'd round; 
To shade his auburn, curled head, 
A purple canopy was spread, 
Which gently with the breezes play'd, 
And shed around a soften'd shade. 
Upon his downy smiling cheek,...Read more of this...

Sylvias Death

by Anne Sexton
 for Sylvia Plath
O Sylvia, Sylvia, 
with a dead box of stones and spoons, 
with two children, two meteors 
wandering loose in a tiny playroom, 
with your mouth into the sheet, 
into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer, 
(Sylvia, Sylvia 
where did you go 
after you wrote me 
from Devonshire 
about rasing potatoes 
and keeping bees?) 
what did you stand...Read more of this...

Sonnet. Inscribed to Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire

by Mary Darby Robinson
 'TIS NOT thy flowing hair of orient gold,
Nor those bright eyes, like sapphire gems that glow;
Nor cheek of blushing rose, nor breast of snow,
The varying passions of the heart could hold: 

Those locks, too soon, shall own a silv'ry ray,
Those radiant orbs their magic fires forego;
Insatiate TIME shall steal those tints away,
Warp thy fine form, and bend thy beauties...Read more of this...

The Troubles of Matthew Mahoney

by William Topaz McGonagall
 In a little town in Devonshire, in the mellow September moonlight,
A gentleman passing along a street saw a pitiful sight,
A man bending over the form of a woman on the pavement.
He was uttering plaintive words and seemingly discontent. 

"What's the matter with the woman?" asked the gentleman,
As the poor, fallen woman he did narrowly scan.
"There's something the matter, as...Read more of this...

Atalanta In Camden -Town

by Lewis Carroll
 AY, 'twas here, on this spot,
In that summer of yore,
Atalanta did not
Vote my presence a bore,
Nor reply to my tenderest talk "She had
heard all that nonsense before." 

She'd the brooch I had bought
And the necklace and sash on,
And her heart, as I thought,
Was alive to my passion;
And she'd done up her hair in the style that
the Empress had brought...Read more of this...

Discontents In Devon

by Robert Herrick
 More discontents I never had
Since I was born, than here;
Where I have been, and still am, sad,
In this dull Devonshire.
Yet justly too I must confess,
I ne'er invented such
Ennobled numbers for the press,
Than where I loath'd so much....Read more of this...

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