Thomas Grey ("Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," with its lyric celebration of ordinary life, is arguably the greatest English poem). TS Elliot, on his go

Thomas Grey ("Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," with its lyric celebration of ordinary life, is arguably the greatest English poem). TS Elliot, on his good days (Prufrock counts as a good day, as do the Landscape poems. He oversteps in "The Waste Land".) Tennyson, when in the mood for melancholy. Robert Herrick, when in the mood for insouciance, contemplation and the poet's struggle.