The post of Britain’s court poet has had some masterful and mediocre occupants, from Wordsworth (though he produced no poetry during his tenancy) to Pye (whose works have been out of print for 180 years). The title arises from the old custom at English universities of presenting laurel wreaths to graduates in rhetoric and versification. It was first associated with John Key, in the reign of Edward IV. Ben Jonson is considered the original poet laureate, from 1616, although John Dryden was the first to be appointed and paid a formal stipend (in his case £200 and a butt of sack); he was also the first and only laureate to be fired, for converting to Catholicism. Inflation and austerity have reduced the fee to a token amount—it was commuted during Southey’s tenancy to an annual sum of £27—but Sir John Betjeman suggested and received the reinstatement of a yearly wine allowance from the royal cellar. The following is a list of laureates, with a representative snatch of their verse.
1668–1688
John Dryden (1631–1700)
“Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense/But good men starve for want of impudence.”
1688–1692
Thomas Shadwell (1642?–1692)
“Words may be false and full of art/Sighs are the natural language of the heart.”
1692–1715
Nahum Tate (1652–1715)
“While shepherds watched their flocks by night/All seated on the ground/The Angel of the Lord came down/And glory shone around.”
1715–1718
Nicholas Rowe (1674–1718)
“Like Helen, in the night when Troy was sacked/Spectatress of the mischief which she made.”
1718–1730
Laurence Eusden (1688–1730)
“Thy virtues shine particularly nice/Ungloomed with a confinity to vice.”
1730–1757
Colley Cibber (1671–1757)
“Oh! how many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding-ring!”
1757–1785
William Whitehead (1715–1785)
“The Laureat’s odes are sung but once/And then not heard—while your renown/For half a season stuns the town.”
1785–1790
Thomas Warton (1728–1790)
“All human race, from China to Peru/Pleasure, howe’er disguis’d by art, pursue.”
1790–1813
Henry James Pye (1745–1813)
“Firm are the sons that Britain leads/To combat on the main/And firm her hardy race that treads/In steady march the plain.”
1813–1843
Robert Southey (1774–1843)
“And everybody praised the Duke/Who this great fight did win. /‘But what good came of it at last?’ quoth little Peterkin./‘Why that I cannot tell,’ said he,/ ‘But ’twas a famous victory.’”
1843–1850
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/But to be young was very heaven!”
1850–1892
Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“My strength is as the strength of ten/Because my heart is pure.”
1896–1913
Alfred Austin (1835–1913)
“Across the wires the electric message came/He is not better: he is much the same.”
1913–1930
Robert Bridges (1844–1930)
“When men were all asleep the snow came flying/In large white flakes over the city brown.”
1930–1967
John Masefield (1878–1967)
“I must go down to the sea again/To the lonely sea and the sky/And all I ask is a tall ship/And a star to sail her by.”
1968–1972
Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972)
“It is the logic of our times/No subject for immortal verse/That we who lived by honest dreams/Defend the bad against the worse.”
1972–1984
John Betjeman (1906–1984)
“Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough/It isn’t fit for humans now/There isn’t grass to graze a cow/Swarm over, Death!”
1984–1998
Ted Hughes (1930–1998)
“Ten years after your death/I meet, on a page of your journal/The shock of your joy.”
1998–
Andrew Motion (1952–)
“Beside the river, swerving under ground/Your future tracked you, snapping at your heels:/Diana, breathless, hunted by your own quick hounds.”