British Poetry Collection
Poem-by-Poem Study Guide with AI-Powered Modern Translation
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Poems by Period
Medieval & Early Anonymous
c. 1250–1500
Cuckoo Song (Sumer Is Icumen In) — Anonymous
16 lines
Alison — Anonymous
38 lines
I Sing of a Maiden — Anonymous
24 lines
16th Century
c. 1500–1600
My Lute, Awake! — Sir Thomas Wyatt
47 lines
They Flee from Me — Sir Thomas Wyatt
23 lines
Whoso List to Hunt — Sir Thomas Wyatt
15 lines
The Long Love That in My Thought Doth Harbour — Sir Thomas Wyatt
15 lines
Loving in Truth (Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 1) — Sir Philip Sidney
14 lines
With How Sad Steps, O Moon (Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 31) — Sir Philip Sidney
14 lines
Leave Me, O Love — Sir Philip Sidney
14 lines
Come Live with Me and Be My Love — Christopher Marlowe
29 lines
The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd — Sir Walter Ralegh
29 lines
Even Such Is Time — Sir Walter Ralegh
8 lines
Prothalamion — Edmund Spenser
37 lines
One Day I Wrote Her Name upon the Strand (Amoretti 75) — Edmund Spenser
14 lines
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? (Sonnet 18) — William Shakespeare
14 lines
When, in Disgrace with Fortune (Sonnet 29) — William Shakespeare
14 lines
Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds (Sonnet 116) — William Shakespeare
14 lines
My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun (Sonnet 130) — William Shakespeare
14 lines
That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold (Sonnet 73) — William Shakespeare
14 lines
Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun — William Shakespeare
27 lines
Full Fathom Five — William Shakespeare
9 lines
It Was a Lover and His Lass — William Shakespeare
27 lines
Who Is Silvia? — William Shakespeare
17 lines
Spring (When Daisies Pied) — William Shakespeare
19 lines
Winter (When Icicles Hang by the Wall) — William Shakespeare
19 lines
The Lie — Sir Walter Ralegh
90 lines
A Sweet Disorder in the Dress — Robert Herrick
14 lines
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time — Robert Herrick
19 lines
Early 17th Century
c. 1600–1660
The Good-Morrow — John Donne
23 lines
Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star — John Donne
29 lines
The Sun Rising — John Donne
32 lines
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning — John Donne
44 lines
Death, Be Not Proud (Holy Sonnet 10) — John Donne
14 lines
Batter My Heart (Holy Sonnet 14) — John Donne
14 lines
Song: Sweetest Love, I Do Not Go — John Donne
44 lines
To His Coy Mistress — Andrew Marvell
46 lines
The Garden — Andrew Marvell
80 lines
The Retreat — Henry Vaughan
32 lines
They Are All Gone into the World of Light! — Henry Vaughan
49 lines
Easter Wings — George Herbert
21 lines
The Collar — George Herbert
36 lines
Love (III) — George Herbert
20 lines
Virtue — George Herbert
19 lines
The Pulley — George Herbert
23 lines
On His Blindness (Sonnet 19) — John Milton
14 lines
On the Late Massacre in Piedmont — John Milton
14 lines
Lycidas — John Milton
203 lines
To Lucasta, Going to the Wars — Richard Lovelace
14 lines
To Althea, from Prison — Richard Lovelace
35 lines
Why So Pale and Wan? — Sir John Suckling
17 lines
To Daffodils — Robert Herrick
21 lines
On My First Son — Ben Jonson
12 lines
Song to Celia (Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes) — Ben Jonson
17 lines
The Ballads
Traditional
Sir Patrick Spens — Anonymous
44 lines
Edward, Edward — Anonymous
62 lines
The Twa Corbies — Anonymous
24 lines
Lord Randal — Anonymous
44 lines
Barbara Allen — Anonymous
49 lines
The Wife of Usher's Well — Anonymous
59 lines
Helen of Kirconnell — Anonymous
49 lines
The Unquiet Grave — Anonymous
34 lines
Waly, Waly — Anonymous
49 lines
Milton
1608–1674
Paradise Lost: Book I (Opening) — John Milton
77 lines
Paradise Lost: Satan's Soliloquy (Book IV) — John Milton
82 lines
Paradise Lost: Eve's Love Speech (Book IV) — John Milton
34 lines
Samson Agonistes (Chorus: "O How Comely It Is") — John Milton
29 lines
Paradise Lost: Closing Lines (Book XII) — John Milton
13 lines
Restoration & 18th Century
c. 1660–1789
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day — John Dryden
72 lines
Alexander's Feast — John Dryden
51 lines
Mac Flecknoe (excerpt) — John Dryden
24 lines
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (excerpt) — Alexander Pope
64 lines
The Rape of the Lock (Canto I) — Alexander Pope
47 lines
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard — Thomas Gray
161 lines
The Tyger — William Blake
29 lines
London — William Blake
19 lines
The Lamb — William Blake
21 lines
And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time (Jerusalem) — William Blake
19 lines
Tam o' Shanter — Robert Burns
78 lines
A Red, Red Rose — Robert Burns
19 lines
To a Mouse — Robert Burns
55 lines
Romantic Period
c. 1789–1837
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud — William Wordsworth
27 lines
Tintern Abbey — William Wordsworth
116 lines
Composed upon Westminster Bridge — William Wordsworth
14 lines
The World Is Too Much with Us — William Wordsworth
14 lines
Kubla Khan — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
56 lines
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Part I) — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
101 lines
Ozymandias — Percy Bysshe Shelley
14 lines
Ode to the West Wind — Percy Bysshe Shelley
94 lines
To a Skylark — Percy Bysshe Shelley
53 lines
She Walks in Beauty — Lord Byron
20 lines
So, We'll Go No More a Roving — Lord Byron
14 lines
La Belle Dame sans Merci — John Keats
59 lines
Ode to a Nightingale — John Keats
87 lines
Ode on a Grecian Urn — John Keats
54 lines
To Autumn — John Keats
35 lines
When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be — John Keats
14 lines
Bright Star — John Keats
14 lines
The Destruction of Sennacherib — Lord Byron
29 lines
Victorian Era
c. 1837–1901
Ulysses — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
72 lines
The Lady of Shalott — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
89 lines
The Charge of the Light Brigade — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
60 lines
My Last Duchess — Robert Browning
56 lines
Dover Beach — Matthew Arnold
40 lines
Pied Beauty — Gerard Manley Hopkins
12 lines
God's Grandeur — Gerard Manley Hopkins
15 lines
Invictus — William Ernest Henley
19 lines