Poetry V

A new literary quiz at irregular intervals, usually with a theme. This week: I begin the new year with a return to tradition: the fifth of my poetry puzzlers. I don't much care about the titles of these poems, any more than (usually) the poets did themselves. Name That Poet! (for a Gold Point apiece) is my only demand (except in one obvious case). There may be silver bonus points awarded, and penalty points deducted, of course. All the poems are complete; none is obscure: some are actual giveaways. Away you go, Poettasters!

The quotations in these quizzes reflect my own tastes - Dead White Males, for the most part (Jane Austen, of course, counts as an honorary DWM). There will never be anything wilfully obscure. If you're the sort of person who sneers at the naïveté of the reviewers in the TLS and New York Review of Books, you'll recognize them at once. I welcome suggestions and insults. You'll find an e-mail tag lying around somewhere. Please put QUIZ in the subject line.

1)

Surprised by joy - impatient as the Wind
    I turned to share the transport - O! with whom
    But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recall'd thee to my mind -
    But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
    Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss? - That thought's return
    Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
    Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
    Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.





Answer

2)

The author is that great poet, A. Nonny Mouse: all you have to do is say who "Sir Walter Scott" really is.

The king sits in Dunfermline town
    Drinking the blude-red wine;
'O whare will I get a skeely skipper
    To sail this new ship o' mine?'

O up and spak an eldern knight,
    Sat at the king's right knee;
'Sir Walter Scott is the best sailor
    That ever sail'd the sea.'

Our king has written a braid letter,
    And seal'd it with his hand,
And sent it to Sir Walter Scott,
    Was walking on the strand.

'To Noroway, to Noroway,
    To Noroway o'er the faem;
The king's daughter o' Noroway,
    'Tis thou must bring her hame.'

The first word that Sir Walter read
    So loud, loud laugh'd he;
The neist word that Sir Walter read
    The tear blinded his e'e.

'O wha is this has done this deed
    And tauld the king o' me,
To send us out, at this time o' year,
    To sail upon the sea?

'Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,
    Our ship must sail the faem;
The king's daughter o' Noroway,
    'Tis we must fetch her hame.'

They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn
    Wi' a' the speed they may;
They hae landed in Noroway
    Upon a Wodensday.

'Mak ready, mak ready, my merry men a'!
    Our gude ship sails the morn.'
'Now ever alack, my master dear,
    I fear a deadly storm.

'I saw the new moon late yestreen
    Wi' the auld moon in her arm;
And if we gang to sea, master,
    I fear we'll come to harm.'

They hadna sail'd a league, a league,
    A league but barely three,
When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,
    And gurly grew the sea.

The ankers brak, and the topmast lap,
    It was sic a deadly storm:
And the waves cam owre the broken ship
    Till a' her sides were torn.

'Go fetch a web o' the silken claith,
    Another o' the twine,
And wap them into our ship's side,
    And let nae the sea come in.'

They fetch'd a web o' the silken claith,
    Another o' the twine,
And they wapp'd them round that gude ship's side,
    But still the sea came in.

O laith, laith were our gude Scots lords
    To wet their cork-heel'd shoon;
But lang or a' the play was play'd
    They wat their hats aboon.

And mony was the feather bed
    That flatter'd on the faem;
And mony was the gude lord's son
    That never mair cam hame.

O lang, lang may the ladies sit,
    Wi' their fans into their hand,
Before they see Sir Walter Scott
    Come sailing to the strand!

And lang, lang may the maidens sit
    Wi' their gowd kames in their hair,
A-waiting for their ain dear loves!
    For them they'll see nae mair.

Half-owre, half-owre to Aberdour,
    'Tis fifty fathoms deep;
And there lies gude Sir Walter Scott,
    Wi' the Scots lords at his feet!





Answer

3)

Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming in the joys of night;
Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep,
Little sorrows sit and weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face,
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.

As thy softest limbs I feel,
Smiles as of the morning steal
O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast,
Where thy little heart doth rest.

O the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep!
When thy little heart doth wake,
Then the dreadful night shall break.





Answer

4)

No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
    Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist
    By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
    Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
        Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
    For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
        And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
    Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
    And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
    Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
        Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
    Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
        And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
    And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
    Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
    Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
        Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
    His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
        And be among her cloudy trophies hung.





Answer

5)

'O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
    And call the cattle home,
    And call the cattle home,
    Across the sands of Dee.'
The western wind was wild and dark with foam,
    And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,
    And o'er and o'er the sand,
    And round and round the sand,
    As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land:
    And never home came she.

'O is it weed, or fish, or floating hair -
    A tress of golden hair,
    A drowned maiden's hair,
    Above the nets at sea?'
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
    Among the stakes of Dee.

They row'd her in across the rolling foam,
    The cruel crawling foam,
    The cruel hungry foam,
    To her grave beside the sea.
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,
    Across the sands of Dee.





Answer

6)

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fear no more.

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.





Answer

7)

And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, so winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpiercèd ever
With glitter of sun-rays
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
Aforesaid by Circe.
Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,
And drawing sword from my hip
I dug the ell-square pitkin;
Poured we libations unto each the dead,
First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour.
Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death's heads;
As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best
For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods,
A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep.
Dark blood flowed in the fosse,
Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides,
Of youths and of the old who had borne much;
Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender,
Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads,
Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms,
These many crowded about me; with shouting,
Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;
Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze;
Poured ointment, cried to the gods,
To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;
Unsheathed the narrow sword,
I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead,
Till I should hear Tiresias.
But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,
Unburied, cast on the wide earth,
Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,
Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other.
Pitiful spirit. And I cried in hurried speech:
"Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?
"Cam'st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?"
                    And he in heavy speech:
"Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Circe's ingle.
"Going down the long ladder unguarded,
"I fell against the buttress,
"Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.
"But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,
"Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed:
"A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.
"And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows."

And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban,
Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first:
"A second time? why? man of ill star,
"Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?
"Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever
"For soothsay."
                    And I stepped back,
And he strong with the blood, said then: "Odysseus
"Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,
"Lose all companions." Then Anticlea came.
Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus,
In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer.
And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outward and away
And unto Circe.
                        Venerandam,
In the Cretan's phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite,
Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, oricalchi, with golden
Girdles and breast bands, thou with dark eyelids
Bearing the golden bough of Argicida. So that:





Answer

8)

                        I

Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the selfsame sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music. It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna.

Of a green evening, clear and warm,
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders watching, felt

The basses of their beings throb
In witching chords, and their thin blood
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

                        II

In the green water, clear and warm,
Susanna lay.
She searched
The touch of springs,
And found
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed,
For so much melody.

Upon the bank, she stood
In the cool
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves,
The dew
Of old devotions.

She walked upon the grass,
Still quavering.
The winds were like her maids,
On timid feet,
Fetching her woven scarves,
Yet wavering.

A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned -
A cymbal crashed,
And roaring horns.

                        III

Soon, with a noise like tambourines,
Came her attendant Byzantines.
They wondered why Susanna cried
Against the elders by her side;

And as they whispered, the refrain
Was like a willow swept by rain.
Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame
Revealed Susanna and her shame.

And then, the simpering Byzantines
Fled, with a noise like tambourines.

                        IV

Beauty is momentary in the mind -
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.
The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden's choral.
Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scraping.
Now in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.





Answer

9)

Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly - doctor-like - controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
    Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,
    Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.





Answer

10)

Some say that Guy of Warwick,
The man that killed the Cow,
And brake the mighty Boar alive
Beyond the bridge at Slough;
Went up against a Loathly Worm
That wasted all the Downs,
And so the roads they twist and squirm
(If I may be allowed the term)
From the writhing of the stricken Worm
That died in seven towns.
    I see no scientific proof
    That this idea is sound,
    And I should say they wound about
    To find the town of Roundabout,
    The merry town of Roundabout,
    That makes the world go round.

Some say that Robin Goodfellow,
Whose lantern lights the meads
(To steal a phrase Sir Walter Scott
In heaven no longer needs),
Such dance around the trysting-place
The moonstruck lover leads;
Which superstition I should scout:
There is more faith in honest doubt
(As Tennyson has pointed out)
Than in those nasty creeds.
    But peace and righteousness (St John)
    In Roundabout can kiss,
    And since that’s all that’s found about
    The pleasant town of Roundabout,
    The roads they simply bound about
    To find out where it is.

Some say that when Sir Lancelot
Went forth to find the Grail,
Grey Merlin wrinkled up the roads
For hope that he would fail;
All roads lead back to Lyonesse
And Camelot in the Vale:
I cannot yield assent to this
Extravagant hypothesis;
The plain, shrewd Briton will dismiss
Such rumours (Daily Mail).
    But in the streets of Roundabout
    Are no such factions found,
    Or theories to expound about,
    Or roll upon the ground about,
    In the happy town of Roundabout,
    That makes the world go round.





Answer

1)
Desideria, W. Wordsworth. A Gold Point for Wordsworth: if you can really, truly, honestly put your hand on your heart and say that you knew the title of this great sonnet, then take twenty silver points. But I still won't believe you, even if you swear on a stack of copies of The Oxford Book of English Verse. I think every bleeder knows this as Surprised by Joy.


Back to Question 1

2)
Sir Patrick Spens, of course! You get a Gold Point for that. Twenty-silver penalty for you, Phunter, if you didn't get it. FIFTY-silver penalty for you, Pollytess, if you didn't get it! And that's generous of me. [Polly lives in Aberdour.]


Back to Question 2

3)
Cradle Song, W. Blake. There is a long list of poets of whom their particular admirers say, "If you don't appreciate X's poems, you have no taste for poetry." Indeed, I have occasionally been guilty of this remark myself. But if there is one poet of whom this absurd hyperbole is absolutely, unequivocally true, then that poet is Blake. No other poet, not Shake-Speare, not Dante, not Milton even, has his unrestrained power. I don't know whether the title of this piece is Blake's own - I like to think that it is. Ten silvers if you knew it, twenty if you guessed it.


Back to Question 3

4)
Ode on Melancholy, J. Keats. This is a very well-known poem - but less very-well-known than some of his other very-well-known poems, though it is in no way inferior to any of them. Brian will be keen to tell anyone who couldn't identify it that every line - indeed, almost every word - bears Keats's clear and actionable signature. Five silver points for the title.


Back to Question 4

5)
The Sands of Dee, Charles Kingsley. I confess, I included this poem in the hope that it would make one or two people grind their teeth in enraged frustration .... "Bloody hell! Who wrote The Sands of Sodding Dee? It's on the tip of my bastard tongue!"


Back to Question 5

6)
Who Goes with Fergus? W.B. Yeats. A poem which runs through Stephen Dedalus's mind like a mantra .... as well it might. "All art aspires to the condition of music," and this early Yeats masterpiece gets about as close to achieving that condition as any poem ever has. No bonus for the title, of course. Oh, all right! Two silver points for the title .... I'm such a softy ....


Back to Question 6

7)
Canto I, E. Pound. Ooooooooh! Much has been written about this poem .... I shall not attempt to summarise. Did you like it? I hope so. As I've said before, I wish I could go back in time, find Pound in the Venice of a hundred years ago, and make him (at gunpoint, if necessary) translate the whole of Divus's Latin cribs of The Odyssey and The Iliad. If you said "First Canto" as well as "Pound", then you can have ten silver points to go with your Gold.


Back to Question 7

8)
Peter Quince at the Clavier, W. Stevens. This has been called the most sensual poem written in English: I'm not sure I quite agree. But it's certainly up there. Only five silver points for the oddly unforgettable title.


Back to Question 8

9)
Sonnet LXVI, E. Vere. All right! Stand up any boy or girl who didn't know that this was a Shake-Speare sonnet! I'm ashamed to have you in my class, you snivelling little wretches! Twenty GOLD-POINT penalty for each one of you! Yes! I know that means your scores will be less than zero! Stop whining this instant, or you'll feel the weight of my stick!


Back to Question 9

10)
The Road to Roundabout, G.K. Chesterton. I thought I'd finish with a poem which is a good deal cheerier than any of the others in the Quiz. Well, no one need apologise these days for admiring Chesterton's verse. [Ferret bridles at the very idea.] This is one of his very best pieces - not a weak line in it. I suppose it's possible, or, rather, probable, that he groaned and swore as he struggled with it - the easier a poem is to read, the harder it is to write - but I'd like to believe that he wrote it in ten minutes on a wave of joie-de-vivre. That's certainly the feeling it induces in me when I read it. What a triumph! Thanks, GK. And I hope you all made a decent score, except for the miscreants who suffered a well-deserved penalty, of course. Happy New Year! I trust that you all enjoyed your holidays, and that you're ready to get down to some solid hard work in the coming term. You may now return to your studies.


Back to Question 10

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Last Updated: 15 January 2010