W. B. Yeats

His genius is expressed through the precision and delicacy of the language of his lyrical poems. Some of his words were engraved in the 2012 Olympic village and his early poetry was a major influence on and inspiration for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Tennyson initially declined a baronetcy - indeed, he wrote a substantial amount of unoffical political poetry. To this day, he remains one of Britain''s most popular poets.