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Famous Eton Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...k wall dividing

The road in two.





10



A novelty then

The camera drew

Crowds from the Bridgefields

A boy in an Eton collar

His bowler-hatted father

Girls with braided curls

Dresses to their ankles

A delivery boy

With a brimming basket

A man with a beer pail

In either hand.





11



The long exposure

Caught every movement

In a single frame

The pensioner shuffling

With his stick

The girl tying

A ribbon

In glowing sepia

A tiny kingdom

Swept away before...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry



...and of many rivers

Aire the greatest

Isara the strong one

Robed in stillness

Wide, deep and dark.





4



In Middleton Woods

Margaret and I played

Truth or dare

She bared her breasts

To the watching stars.





5



“Milk, milk,

Lemonade, round

The corner

Chocolate spread”

Nancy chanted at

Ten in the binyard

Touching her ****,

Her ****, her bum,

Margaret joined in

Chanting in unison.





6



The skipping rope

Turned faster

And faster, slapping

The hot ...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...y’ ‘sithee’ and ‘love’, lastingly lilt

From cradle to grave, from backstreet

On the social, our son, beat his way

To Eton, Balliol, to Calcatta’s Shantiniketan

And all the way back to a locked ward.

While I in the meantime fondly fiddled 

With rhyme and unreason, publishing pamphlets

And Leeds Poetry Weekly while under the bane

Of his tragic illness, poet and mother,

You were driven from pillar to post

By the taunting yobbery of your family

And the crass insensitiv...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way.

Ah happy hills, ah pl...Read more of this...
by Gray, Thomas
...s, or so I was told, but when
The orphans assembled for their annual reunion, ten
Years later, on the playing fields of Eton, each unloaded
A kit bag full of troubles, and smiled bravely, and went to bed.

Thanks to Operation Memory, each of us woke up in a different bed
Or coffin, with a different partner beside him, in the middle
Of a war that had never been declared. No one had time to load
His weapon or see to any of the dozen essential jobs
Preceding combat duty. And the...Read more of this...
by Lehman, David



...n, the world’s…

Sixty to eighty cigarettes a day, unavailing depot injections,

Failed abscondings, failed everything: Eton and Balliol

Hold no sway on ward one, nor even being

‘A six language master,’ on PICU madness is the only qualification.

There was the ‘shaving incident’ at school, which

Made him ready to walk out at fifteen, the alcohol

Defences at Oxford which shut us out then petered out

During the six years in India, studying Bengali at Shantiniketan.

He tot...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...ces, denial would be absurd.

But the one that cooked my bacon was Grubbe, of the City Patrol.
He fagged for my room at Eton, and didn't I devil his soul!
And now he is getting even, landing me down in the hole.

Plugging away on the wood-pile; doing chores round the square.
There goes an officer's lady--gives me a haughty stare--
Me that's an earl's own nephew--that is the hardest to bear.

To think of the poor old mater awaiting her prodigal son.
Tho' I broke her heart with...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...the golden glory; 
 And prouder I'd be than the diadem spread 
 Round the brow of kings famous in story. 
 
 V., Eton Observer. 


 




...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry