Wordsworth lived in the Lake District, and his poetry was not usually based on urban subjects. However, he wrote this while crossing Westminster Bridge on his way to France. He is often referred to as the first of the modern poets, because he was the first British poet to write about his own feelings.
He and his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge are often considered the first of the romantic poets.
2. If
Answer: Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling wrote this poem in 1910 as part of a collection called 'Rewards and Fairies'. Winston Churchill used lines from it thirty years later to encourage the people during the grimmest days of the Second World War. He quoted the words, 'If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; / If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; / If you can meet with triumph and disaster / And treat these two impostors just the same'.
3. The Highwayman
Answer: Alfred Noyes
Alfred Noyes was a novelist, playwright and anthologist as well as a poet. He taught English literature at Princeton University in the United States between 1914 and 1923. He rejected the modern focus on the subconscious, and preferred the narrative tradition of the Victorian and Edwardian poets.
4. The Song of Hiawatha
Answer: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There was a real Hiawatha who lived in the 15th century. He was chief of the Onondaga tribe of the Irequois. Tales of his expoits have been told by the native Americans throughout the centuries. Longfellow's poem, written in 1858, popularised the folklore of the original inhabitants of the U.S.A., and he has set the wedding feast part of the poem to music, which has been widely recorded and performed.
5. The Lady of Shalott
Answer: Alfred Lord Tennyson
This poem is based on the Arthurian legend of Lancelot and Elaine. Elaine was cursed to look at the world only through a mirror, and she had to weave what she saw. One day she saw the reflection of handsome Sir Lancelot, and could not resist going to the window to look at him.
This brought on her doom and she sailed down the river towards the town. When she reached there she was dead. William Holman Hunt painted a beautiful Pre-Raphaelite picture of this subject, which is housed in the Tate Britain Gallery in London.
6. Night Mail
Answer: W.H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden joined the GPO film unit in 1935 and 'Night Mail' was written as a commentary for a short film shown as a news reel item in British cinemas. His first poems were published by T.S. Eliot, who was then a director of Faber and Faber publishing house. W.H. Auden is now more famous for his poem 'Stop all the Clocks', which was first published as 'Funeral Blues', and was read out in the very popular movie 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'.
7. Dulce et Decorum est
Answer: Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen is a First World War poet who was not popular at the time because his poetry spoke of the hard truths of war. The public preferred Rupert Brooke, who wrote of heroism and glory and long lasting love. Wilfred Owen and his friend Siegfried Sassoon wrote of death and the horror endured in the trenches. He is now considered to be the outstanding poet of World War One.
8. The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Answer: Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde, a very flamboyant character, was an Irish poet, playwright, novelist and wit. He wrote the ballad in France a year after he had been released from Gaol. He had served a sentence of two years for homosexual activities.
9. Not Waving but Drowning
Answer: Stevie Smith
Stevie Smith, who was born as Florence Margaret, was mainly a writer of humorous verse. She was a rather eccentric single lady who lived with and cared for her aunt. In the 1960s her poetry readings were very successful. She did not drive, and shamelessly expected her friends with cars to drive her to these. 'Not Waving but Drowning' is a poem which sums up most people's feelings of fear and inadequacy.
10. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Answer: Robert Frost
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, but was taken to live in New England at the age of ten. It was the landscape of this area which was the inspiration for most of his poetry. Although he is considered one of the greatest landscape poets, a sinister undertone to his work can often be detected, and the critic Lionel Trilling dubbed him 'A poet of terror'. Frost was a friend of President John Kennedy and read out a poem at his inauguration.
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