British literature Among Wordsworth's most important poems, are "Michael", "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey", "Resolution and Independence", "" and the long, autobiographical, epic "The Prelude". Robert Southey (1774–1843) was another of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843. Although his fame has been long eclipsed by that of his contemporaries and friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859) was an English essayist, best known for his "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" (1821), an autobiographical account of his laudanum and its effect on his life. The
To William Wordsworth attempted to express his response — seemingly the only poem he would write that troubled year, and arguably his last poem of any substance." To William Wordsworth To William Wordsworth is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge written in 1807 as a response to poet William Wordsworth's autobiographical poem "The Prelude", called here "that prophetic lay". Wordsworth had recited that poem to his friend Coleridge personally. In his poem, Coleridge praises Wordsworth's understanding of both external and human nature, at the same time emphasizing Wordsworth's poetic achievement and downplaying Coleridge's own. Coleridge stayed with his friends William and Dorothy Wordsworth