Show long lived poets poet poets on the whole are a long lived race writes looker on in the london daily chronicle and some records are recalled of 0 poets laureate of thoe lu in since the time of ben jonson most have hate reached a good old age and held office for many years wordsworth for instance lived to be eighty sir william lavenant Da venant eighty two tennyson eighty three and colley gibber e eighty 1 six the average tenure of the laureateship has been over twenty years southey held it for thirty years and tennyson for forty seven |