Poetic Animals Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lamb

'Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?'. The poem appears in 'Songs of Innocence and Experience', with the tiger being the 'experienced' counterpart to the poem about 'The Lamb' which appears in the 'innocence' part of the volume.

The photo shows a Border Collie, also known as a sheepdog.

Answer: Flea

The poem was published two years after Donne's death and is interpreted as an erotic piece of work. Donne uses the image of the flea, who sucks blood from both male and female, as a metaphor for sex - the poem is about a man trying to persuade a woman to have sex with him.

The photo of a big top is a hint towards a 'flea circus'.

Answer: Turkey

'Dear pig are you willing, to sell for one shilling, your ring' are the words which set the ceremony in motion, with 'the turkey who lives on the hill' providing the finishing touches the next day. Lear is known for his nonsense rhymes, with 'The Pobble Who Has no Toes' and 'The Jumblies', who went to sea in a sieve, also being his creations.

The flag in the photo is that of the country called Turkey and is not a direct link to the poem.

Answer: Cat

Gray wrote his poem 'Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes' in 1774. It was based on a real life incident, when a friend's cat drowned while trying to catch fish. Gray describes the cat, a tabby, coming up for air eight times, mewing for help which never came, in a reference to the cat's famed nine lives.

He borrowed from Shakespeare to finish the poem 'Not all that tempts your wandering eyes and heedless hearts is lawful prize; Nor all that glisters, gold'. Gray is also remember for his 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard', which begins 'The curfew tolls the knell of parting day'.

Answer: Thrush

Hardy's last novel was 'Jude the Obscure', published in 1895; from then on he published only poetry. The first volume, 'Wessex Poems', came out in 1898 and included poems written over many years. Hardy covered a wide range of topics, from nature to war, and even wrote a poem about the sinking of the 'Titanic'.

'The Darkling Thrush' describes a bleak, cold, winter's day, which is brightened by the song of the thrush - 'His happy good-night air, some blessed hope, whereof he knew and I was unaware'.

I gave you a literal clue for this question - a picture of a thrush.

Answer: Nautilus

The poem, called 'The Chambered Nautilus', describes the beauty of the shell once occupied by the nautilus. The shell in the poem is now broken and abandoned, but Holmes describes the process by which the nautilus has created its shell, with new chambers being added as the creature outgrows its original home.

The photo shows a nautilus, thankfully with an undamaged shell.

Answer: Lion

'The Lion and Albert' was written to be recited, rather than read, and describes how Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom are rather underwhelmed by Blackpool, so take Albert to the zoo. Albert decides to poke Wallace, the lion, with a stick and is promptly eaten. His parents seem more upset at the loss of Albert's 'Sunday best' clothes than by the fate of the boy himself. If you want to hear the whole, sad, story it is easily found on the internet.

Showing a whole lion would have been too easy for you, but the tail in the picture ought to be sufficient as a clue.

Answer: The Eagle

This poem is short enough to quote in full:

'He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.'

The work was first published in 1851 and has been the subject of much debate regarding whether it is complete or part of an intended longer work. I like to visualise the eagle watching for prey before diving to capture it.

The, non-literal, photo clue shows a golf green where many an eagle has been made by the world's best players.

Answer: Donkey

Chesterton also described the donkey in these words: 'with monstrous head and sickening cry and ears like errant wings'. Chesterton wrote during the early part of the twentieth century - 1900 until his death in 1936 - and created the fictional detective Father Brown. The donkey has the last laugh in the poem, when he reminds the reader that he had his moment of glory, with 'a shout about my ears and palms before my feet'. This relates to the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem riding on a donkey.

The pictorial clue is of palm leaves, which should have helped if you know the Bible stories.

Answer: Mouse

Burns wrote the poem in 1785, with the full description being 'Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie'.

The full title of the poem is 'To a Mouse, on Turning Her up in her Nest with a Plough', and is said to have come to Burns when he accidentally excavated the nest while working in the fields.

The visual clue is of a mousetrap, although the mouse in the poem would have been a field mouse, not the house mouse for which traps are usually, often unsuccessfully, set.