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Famous Edwardian Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...High dormers are rising
So sharp and surprising,
And ponticum edges
The driveways of gravel;
Stone houses from ledges
Look down on ravines.
The vision can travel
From gable to gable,
Italianate mansion
And turretted stable,
A sylvan expansion
So varied and jolly
Where laurel and holly
Commingle their greens.

Serene on a Sunday
The sun glitters hotly
O'er ...Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John



...s poems with references

To three kinds of Arabic genie

The class system of ancient Egypt

The pub architecture of the Edwardian era.

From the back row I strained to see his face.

The craggy jaw, the mane of long white hair.

The bowl of daffodils I’d focused on before.



He spoke but could not read and

Like me had no single poem by heart.

In his stead a man and woman read:

I could forgive the man’s inability to pronounce ‘Dionysian’

But when he read ‘hover’ as ‘haver...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...

On the veil

Of her gown.



Near the forge

On Hunslet Road

A junkshop window

With a wooden stereoscope

Showed an Edwardian

Beach, Margaret and I

Hand-in-hand walked

Through the lens

And lay on the sand.





29



The 3D film

Came to ‘The Princess’

And when the huge

Hypodermic lunged

From the screen

Margaret clutched

At me convulsively.



The feast at

Hunslet Moor

Roared its music

Into the night

We passed over

The bridge out

Of sight of

The streets, p...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...reen
 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 the mackerel sky.

No hope. And the iron knob of this palisade
 So cold to the touch, is luckier now than he
"Oh merciless, hurr...Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John
...laid bare, Mombi the witch, Dorothy and Toto

Gathered forlornly round the saw-horse, the scarlet and crimson

Of their Edwardian rig slightly ridiculous, the Gothic typeface

Evoking sepia prints of my father at five in a pinafore or seven

In a sailor-suit feeding the Sunday birds, my grandmother

Framed in a trellis of mignonette, the aroma fragrant still,

The violet stock lingering and re-kindling our first garden

The autumn we moved in, the rampant blossoms cager in th...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry



...es 

Again and again. In Leeds City Square where 

Pugin’s church, the Black Prince and the Central Post Office

In its Edwardian grandeur are startled by the arching spumes

Or white water fountains and the steel barricades of Novotel

Rise from the ruins of a sixties office block.

I hurry past and join Boar Lane’s Friday crew

From Keighley and Dewsbury’s mills, hesitating

At the thought of being told I’m past my 

Sell-by-date and turned away by the West Indian

Bouncers...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...he string of horses
Moving out of sight and mind.

Feathery ash in leathery Lambourne
Waves above the sarsen stone,
And Edwardian plantations
So coniferously moan
As to make the swelling downland,
Far surrounding, seem their own....Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Edwardian poems.


Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry