Poetry III

A new literary quiz each week or so, usually with a theme. This week: If I had composed sixty-odd literary quizzes a hundred years ago, and had devoted only two of them to poetry, many eyebrows would have been raised. A hundred years before that, it would have been so eccentric as to be impossible. I make no apologies, therefore, for Poetry III. Two clues - all the selections are from The Oxford Book of English Verse (Q's edition), and all of them are by great poets. Score a gold point for each author, and a varying, arbitrary number of silver bonus points, which will be indicated in the "Answer", for the title. I'm sure you won't disgrace yourselves too completely.

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)

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frown'd,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlock'd his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens sooth'd an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glitter'd a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crown'd
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheer'd mild Spenser, call'd from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains - alas, too few!


Answer

2)

O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,
And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.


Answer

3)

Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.

Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War's annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.


Answer

4(Extract)

Oft on a Plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off Curfeu sound,
Over som wide-water'd shoar,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or if the Ayr will not permit,
Som still removèd place will fit,
Where glowing Embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the Cricket on the hearth,
Or the Belmans drousie charm,
To bless the dores from nightly harm:
Or let my Lamp at midnight hour,
Be seen in som high lonely Towr,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphear
The spirit of Plato to unfold
What Worlds, or what vast Regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook:
And of those Daemons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With Planet, or with Element.
Som time let Gorgeous Tragedy
In Scepter'd Pall com sweeping by,
Presenting Thebs, or Pelops line,
Or the tale of Troy divine.
Or what (though rare) of later age,
Ennoblèd hath the Buskind stage.


Answer

5)

Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men with thee do go -
Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!


Answer

6(Extract)

‘This Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineres
That come from a far countree.

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve -
He hath a cushion plump:
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.

The skiff-boat near'd: I heard them talk,
“Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now?”

“Strange, by my faith!” the Hermit said -
“And they answer'd not our cheer!
The planks looked warp'd! and see those sails,
How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf's young.”


Answer

7)

On a day - alack the day! -
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind
All unseen 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!
Do not call it sin in me
That I am forsworn for thee;
Thou for whom e'en Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiop were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.


Answer

8(Extract)

Tell me, ye merchants daughters, did ye see
So fayre a creature in your towne before;
So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she,
Adornd with beautyes grace and vertues store?
Her goodly eyes lyke Saphyres shining bright,
Her forehead yvory white,
Her cheekes lyke apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips lyke cherryes charming men to byte,
Her brest like to a bowle of creame uncrudded,
Her paps lyke lyllies budded,
Her snowie necke lyke to a marble towre;
And all her body like a pallace fayre,
Ascending up, with many a stately stayre,
To honors seat and chastities sweet bowre.
Why stand ye still ye virgins in amaze,
Upon her so to gaze,
Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing,
To which the woods did answer, and your eccho ring?

But if ye saw that which no eyes can see,
The inward beauty of her lively spright,
Garnisht with heavenly guifts of high degree,
Much more then would ye wonder at that sight,
And stand astonisht lyke to those which red
Medusaes mazeful hed.
There dwels sweet love, and constant chastity,
Unspotted fayth, and comely womanhood,
Regard of honour, and mild modesty;
There vertue raynes as Queene in royal throne,
And giveth lawes alone,
The which the base affections doe obay,
And yeeld theyr services unto her will;
Ne thought of thing uncomely ever may
Thereto approch to tempt her mind to ill.
Had ye once seene these her celestial threasures,
And unrevealèd pleasures,
Then would ye wonder, and her prayses sing,
That al the woods should answer, and your echo ring.


Answer

9)

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.


Answer

10)

Glory be to God for dappled things -
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced - fold, fallow, and plough;
And àll tràdes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                Praise him.


Answer

1)
The Sonnet (the second of two with the same title in the OBEV), William Wordsworth. A highly suitable one to start with. Give yourself ten silver points if you knew the title, and two if you guessed it.


Back to Question 1

2)
To Sleep, John Keats. Wordsworth was, without question, a great poet: how then can one describe Keats? Best not to make a fool of oneself trying. If you haven't listened to Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Orchestra, please do so (the original recording, of course, with Peter Pears and Dennis Brain). The setting of this tremendous sonnet is particularly beautiful. Silver points for the title-of-convenience? Two if you knew, one if you guessed. “Sleep” scores nul points.


Back to Question 2

3)
In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’, Thomas Hardy. If you looked at my other two Poetry Quizzes, you'll have seen all I have to say about Hardy. This poem was, of course, written during the War to End All Wars. Ten silver points if you knew the title - a million if you guessed it!


Back to Question 3

4)
Il Penseroso, John Milton. Hence, vain deluding joys! Silver points? Well, if you didn't know this was Milton - why are you doing a poetry quiz? And if you knew it was Milton, it could only be Il Penseroso .... Two silver points only.


Back to Question 4

5)
Death, John Donne. A super-easy one! Wordsworth would have been bemused to hear us speaking of such a rough piece of work as a great sonnet. But we value substance more than finish, and no-one had more substance than Dr Donne. No points at all for the title, which wasn't Donne's anyway.


Back to Question 5

6)
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Damn! I tried to slip this one past you, but I knew I was doomed to failure. All right - you score one gold point for Coleridge, nothing for the title, but MINUS SIX BILLION SILVER POINTS if you had a brain-fart and missed it.


Back to Question 6

7)
The Blossom, William Shake-Speare. Did I get you this time? I won't have you burned at the stake for missing it - Love's Labours Lost is not the best-known of the plays, and I rather think that Sir Arthur would not have included this piece if it had been by A.N. Other. Oh - there is a penalty, actually. If you “got” the title, you are disqualified for cheating.


Back to Question 7

8)
Epithalamion, Edmund Spenser. Fine stuff, eh? Of course, they didn't have spell-checkers in the sixteenth century, the lucky devils. Again, if you knew the author, you must have known the title .... Five silver points. I always get a bit more generous towards the end of a Quiz.


Back to Question 8

9)
Summer Night, Alfred Tennyson. Another poet whose reputation has been on a switchback ride. The point is that if you have the poetic eye and ear, intelligence can be largely dispensed with. Only a great poet could have written this, and a score of other lovely things. I don't believe anybody knows this by its “title” - just give yourself a few silver points, and stop whining.


Back to Question 9

10)
Pied Beauty, Gerard Manley Hopkins. All things counter, original, spare, strange .... GMH's contemporaries would not have considered those to be words of commendation. Can there be any greater loneliness than to be born fifty years too soon? And to die so young and pointlessly, too. But at least he had a longer innings than Keats. Gosh, I've made myself all gloomy! I'm going to have a drink, and I hope you will, too. Take twenty silver points. Cheers!

Back to Question 10

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Last Updated: 4 February 2005