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Famous First Lines in Poetry Trivia Quiz

Many poems are remembered partly for their first lines. See if you can identify the poet by the opening line.

A multiple-choice quiz by robert362. Estimated time: 5 mins.

Author
robert362

Time
5 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
19,243

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Difficult

Avg Score
5 / 10

Plays
2215

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. 'It was many and many a year ago ...' Hint

John Greenleaf Whittier

Rudyard Kipling

Edgar Allan Poe

Walt Whitman

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Question 2 of 10

2. 'He did not wear his scarlet coat, for blood and wine are red ...' Hint

Ezra Pound

Oscar Wilde

John Dryden

Thomas Gray

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Question 3 of 10

3. 'Much have I travelled in realms of gold ...' Hint

John Keats

Lord Byron

Percy Shelley

William Wordsworth

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Question 4 of 10

4. 'I must go down to the sea again ... ' Hint

John Masefield

William Blake

Robert Browning

Hart Crane

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Question 5 of 10

5. 'Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed ...' Hint

Elizabeth Browning

Sylvia Plath

Emily Dickinson

Marianne Moore

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Question 6 of 10

6. 'Half a league, half a league, half a league onwards ...' Hint

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Andrew Marvell

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Question 7 of 10

7. 'Whose woods these are I think I know ...' Hint

A.E. Housman

Carl Sandburg

Robert Frost

John Clare

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Question 8 of 10

8. 'Out of the Night that Covers Me ...' Hint

Richard Lovelace

Robert Burns

William Ernest Henley

John Donne

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Question 9 of 10

9. 'Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine ...' Hint

William Butler Yeats

Ernest Dowson

W.H. Auden

Matthew Arnold

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Question 10 of 10

10. 'My prime of youth is but a frost of cares ...' Hint

Chidiock Tichborne

Paul Verlaine

Charles Baudelaire

Arthur Rimbaud

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. 'It was many and many a year ago ...'

Answer: Edgar Allan Poe

Annabel Lee - one of Poe's best

2. 'He did not wear his scarlet coat, for blood and wine are red ...'

Answer: Oscar Wilde

'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' - poor, sad Oscar

3. 'Much have I travelled in realms of gold ...'

Answer: John Keats

'On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer'

4. 'I must go down to the sea again ... '

Answer: John Masefield

'Sea Fever'. Peaceful

5. 'Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed ...'

Answer: Emily Dickinson

From the poem of the same title

6. 'Half a league, half a league, half a league onwards ...'

Answer: Alfred Lord Tennyson

'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. Rousing

7. 'Whose woods these are I think I know ...'

Answer: Robert Frost

'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'. Pretty

8. 'Out of the Night that Covers Me ...'

Answer: William Ernest Henley

'Invictus'. A classic

9. 'Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine ...'

Answer: Ernest Dowson

The fine poem of the long, foreign title

10. 'My prime of youth is but a frost of cares ...'

Answer: Chidiock Tichborne

This one goes by many {titles;} one is 'On the Eve of his Execution'. You may not know the poet, but the poem is a masterpiece. The title tells all.

Source: Author robert362

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