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Motion in Poetry Trivia Quiz

Many poems describe ways of movement of people or things e.g. rolling, tumbling or flying. Can you identify the following quotations or their authors? The fact that a previous UK poet Laureate was Andrew Motion has nothing to do with it!

A multiple-choice quiz by balaton. Estimated time: 4 mins.

Author
balaton

Time
4 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
363,442

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Average

Avg Score
7 / 10

Plays
330

Awards
Top 35% Quiz

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. What poet wrote about the -

"Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"? Hint

John Betjeman

Henry Newbolt

John Masefield

William Shakespeare

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Question 2 of 10

2. "The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls" -

What noble Victorian poet was writing about what subject? Hint

Arnold - "Dover Beach"

Shelley - "The Skylark"

Leigh Hunt - "Abu Ben Adhem"

Tennyson - "The Eagle"

3. What is being described in the following extract from a Southey poem?,

"And glittering and frittering
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering, .... " Hint

Paul Revere's Ride

Niagara Falls

The Cataract of Lodore

The Charge of the Light Brigade

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Question 4 of 10

4. "Here is a cart run away in the road,
Lumping along with man and load."

In what poem, by Robert Louis Stevenson, do we find this evocative picture? Hint

How They Brought the Good News from Aix to Ghent

From a Railway Carriage

Cargoes

Escape at Bedtime

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Question 5 of 10

5. "Back he spurred like a madman, shouting a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high."

In this poem, by Alfred Noyes, about a man riding to avenge his dead sweetheart, what is the occupation of the rider? Hint

A highwayman

A policeman

A soldier

An escaped prisoner

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Question 6 of 10

6. "I fled Him down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind."

What is Francis Thompson talking about in his poem "The Hound of Heaven"? Hint

A loving God pursuing a reluctant soul

A man having a nightmare

A criminal fleeing from the law

A murderer pursued by his victim's ghost

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Question 7 of 10

7. "We swing ungirded hips And lightened are our eyes
The rain is on our lips We do not run for prize
We know not whom we trust Nor whitherward we fare
But we run because we must Through the great wide air."

Who is the poet who wrote "The Song of the Ungirt Runners"? Hint

Charles Hamilton Sorley

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

David Herbert Lawrence

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Question 8 of 10

8. What reluctantly noble poet penned the following lines?

"I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles.
I bubble over eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles." Hint

Caroline, Lady Nairn

Lord Byron

Lord Tennyson

Sir John Davies

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Question 9 of 10

9. There is something supernaturally disturbing in the poem from which this extract is taken -

"Aye they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward
When the plunging hoofs were gone."

It is called "The Listeners". Who wrote it? Hint

Walter de la Mare

Edgar Allan Poe

M.R. James

Ogden Nash

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Question 10 of 10

10. It has been said that only one poet would write a poem beginning "Gr-r-r".
What Victorian poet, also known for his dramatic elopement with another poet, actually did so? Hint

Oscar Wilde

Dylan Thomas

Robert Bridges

Robert Browning

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. What poet wrote about the - "Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"?

Answer: John Masefield

As well as writing "Cargoes", from which poem this extract is taken, Masefield also wrote the well known "Sea Fever" and the longer work "The Everlasting Mercy".
This last mentioned work has the intriguing lines -

"And fifteen arms went round her waist,
(And then men ask, Are Barmaids chaste?)"

2. "The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls" - What noble Victorian poet was writing about what subject?

Answer: Tennyson - "The Eagle"

Alfred Lord Tennyson, a Victorian Poet Laureate, first published this poem in 1851, inspired by his travels in the Pyrenees where he often saw eagles and other raptors.

The poem is a perfect combination of sound and meaning. The lines quoted are among my favourites of all poetry - "wrinkled sea" to describe sea seen from a height is perfect!

3. What is being described in the following extract from a Southey poem?, "And glittering and frittering And gathering and feathering, And whitening and brightening, And quivering and shivering, And hurrying and skurrying, And thundering and floundering, .... "

Answer: The Cataract of Lodore

In the poem Southey, born 1774, describes the Lodore Falls, in the Watendlath Beck, just above Derwentwater, in Cumbria, England. The main drop of the falls is 90 feet.

The poem is a masterpiece of evocative, onomatopoeic language, written in response to the poet's children asking to hear about the falls.

4. "Here is a cart run away in the road, Lumping along with man and load." In what poem, by Robert Louis Stevenson, do we find this evocative picture?

Answer: From a Railway Carriage

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850 and died of tuberculosis in Samoa in 1894. The above poem is one of a collection of children's poems entitled "A Child's Garden of Verses".

5. "Back he spurred like a madman, shouting a curse to the sky, With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high." In this poem, by Alfred Noyes, about a man riding to avenge his dead sweetheart, what is the occupation of the rider?

Answer: A highwayman

The poem is called "The Highwayman". Alfred Noyes, born in 1880, was greatly influenced by Wordsworth and Tennyson and this poem shows his great skill in narrative poetry. He was a critic of modernist writers like James Joyce, and increasingly his later works dealt with religious themes. He died in the 1950s.

6. "I fled Him down the nights and down the days; I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind." What is Francis Thompson talking about in his poem "The Hound of Heaven"?

Answer: A loving God pursuing a reluctant soul

Victorian poet Francis Thompson died of tuberculosis in 1907, having been nursed faithfully by a prostitute he had befriended. He was a very troubled man who suffered most of his life from poverty, addiction and depression.

7. "We swing ungirded hips And lightened are our eyes The rain is on our lips We do not run for prize We know not whom we trust Nor whitherward we fare But we run because we must Through the great wide air." Who is the poet who wrote "The Song of the Ungirt Runners"?

Answer: Charles Hamilton Sorley

Sorley was born in 1895 and killed in 1915 at the Battle of Loos. In 1985 he was commemorated along with 16 other war poets on a tablet in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

8. What reluctantly noble poet penned the following lines? "I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles. I bubble over eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles."

Answer: Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson was born in 1809, the son of a country clergyman and, after a prolific poetic output, succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate. He reluctantly accepted a peerage at Gladstone's earnest desire in 1884.

"The Brook" is one of his best known and loved poems. He died in 1892 aged 83.

9. There is something supernaturally disturbing in the poem from which this extract is taken - "Aye they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward When the plunging hoofs were gone." It is called "The Listeners". Who wrote it?

Answer: Walter de la Mare

Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) is probably best remembered for this poem. He was also a writer of quite eerie ghost stories, as one might guess.

10. It has been said that only one poet would write a poem beginning "Gr-r-r". What Victorian poet, also known for his dramatic elopement with another poet, actually did so?

Answer: Robert Browning

Robert Browning, 1812-1869, was a master of dramatic verse, especially the dramatic monologue. This one - "A Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" - is an invective against a fellow monk of his cloister. The poem ends with:

"Gr-r-r - you swine!"

This is a bit of a cheat, I know, but I can imagine the body language of the monk. Read the poem and you'll see what I mean!

Source: Author balaton

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor looney_tunes before going online.
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