Poet's Potpourri Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Tyger

William Blake was born in London, England, on November 28, 1757 and died on August 12, 1827. He was a romantic poet, painter, printmaker and engraver who married but had no children.

In this poem William Blake expresses the great wonder of Nature: that God who made the gentle lamb made also the awful tiger. The poem is as follows:

"Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night!
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame they fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire-
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when they heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer, what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
Did God smile his work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?"

Answer: Solitude

Alexander Pope was born on May 21 1688 in London and died on May 30, 1744. He is considered as one of the greatest English poets of the early 18th century, whose poem about solitary life is famous. His poem is as follows:

"Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter, fire.

Blest who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day.

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus, unlamented, let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie."

Answer: The Three Fishers

Charles Kingsley was born on 12 June 1819 and died on 23 January 1875. He was an English novelist and poet who was born in Holne, Devon. Kingsley was a very witty and humorous novelist who wrote "The Water-Babies" in 1863. His poem "The Three Fishers" is as follows:

"Three fishers went sailing away to the West,
Away to the West as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,
And the children stood watching them out of town;
For men must work, and women must weep,
And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbour-bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,
And trimmed the lamps as the sun went down,
And they looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower,
And the night rack came rolling up, ragged and brown;
But men must work, and women must weep,
Though storms be sudden, and women must weep,
And the harbour-bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sand
In the morning gleam as the tide went down,
And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
For those who will never come home to the town,
For men must work, and women must weep,
And the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep,
And good-bye to the bar and its moaning."

Answer: Philomel/To One Who Has Been Long In City Pent

John Keats was born on 31 October 1795 in London England, and he died on 23 February 1821. John published three books of poetry and was given much bad press from his critics during his short life of 25 years. John was one of the great poets of the English Romantic movement, who once told his brother that "The great beauty of Poetry is, that it makes everything every place interesting".

John Keats' sonnet is called "Philomel" which means "The Nightingale". The first line of the sonnet is taken from "Milton's Paradise Lost", but it is used by Keats to introduce a continuing thought of exquisite beauty. "Philomel" and "To One Who Has Been Long In City Pent" are both titles that have been used for this poem, and the full poem is as follows:

"To one who has been long in city pent
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven-to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
Who is more happy when, with heart's content,
Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair
Of wavy grass, and read a debonair
And gentle tale of love and languishment?
Returning home at evening, with an ear
Catching the notes of Philomel, an eye
Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career,
He mourns that day so soon has glided by:
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear
That falls through the clear ether silently."

Answer: This Life, Which Seems So Fair

William Drummond was born on 13 December, 1585 and died on 4 December, 1649. He was a Scottish poet who was born in Hawthornden, Midlothian. William was married with nine children and he was the first poet to use the canzone, a medieval Italian form, in English verse. The whole poem is as follows:

"This Life, which seems so fair,
Is like a bubble blown up in the air
By sporting children's breath,
Who chase it everywhere
And strive who can most motion it bequeath.
And though it sometimes seem of it own might
Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there,
And firm to hover in that empty height,
That only is because it is so light.
But in that pomp it doth not long appear;
For when 'tis most admired, in a thought,
Because it erst was nought, it turns to nought."

Answer: Farewell

George Wither was a poet, soldier and satirist, who was born on 11 June, 1588 in time to face the stormy years of Charles the First. He was born in Bentworth, Hampshire England and he died on 2 May, 1667.

George wrote pleasant verse sitting in the fields, or languishing in prison cells for writing what he thought; and he sold his estate in the country to raise a troop of horses to fight on Cromwell's side. He paid the penalty of his courage and his patriotism when the Stuarts returned to the throne, and we see something of his sadness in this farewell to a free, natural life. The following lines are from one of his best known little poems.

"Farewell
Sweet groves, to you!
You hills that highest dwell,
And all you humble vales, adieu!
You wanton brooks and solitary rocks,
My dear companions all; and you, my tender flocks!
Farewell, my pipe, and all those pleasing songs whose moving strains
Delighted once the fairest nymphs that dance upon the plains.
You, Discontents (whose deep and over-deadly smart
Has without pity broke the truest heart),
Sighs, Tears, and every sad Annoy
That erst did with me dwell,
And all others' Joy,
Farewell!"

Answer: In Flanders Fields

Lieutenant Colonel John McRae MD, was born on 30 November, 1872 and died on 28 January, 1918. John was a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier, who was born in Guelph, Ontario.

Before the war he was a professor of Medicine at the McGill University in Canada. During World War 1 John was in charge of a first aid post and during a lull in the battle he wrote a poem which has been called the most popular war poem. In the trenches he wrote the poem on a piece of scrap paper whilst leaning on the back of Colonel Cosgrove at the battle of Ypres. John was wounded and he died in a military hospital near Boulogne. On each Remembrance Day a wreath of poppies is laid on his grave. The words of his poem are as follows:

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."

Answer: A Nation's Strength

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the lines called "A Nation's Strength" because he wanted to declare that character, not wealth, is the foundation of a nation's greatness. He was born in Boston Massachusetts on 25 May, 1803 and died on 27 April, 1882 in Concord Massachusetts.

Ralph was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, author and leader of the Transcendentalist Movement. He was twice married and had four children. Ralph is quoted as saying "Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you". His short patriotic poem is as follows:

"Not gold, but only man, can make
A people great and strong _
Men who for truth and honour's sake
Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly_
They build a nation's pillars deep
And lift them to the sky."

Answer: A Red, Red Rose

Robert Burns was born on 25 January 1759 (died 21 July 1796) in Alloway, Ayrshire Scotland. He is a poet and lyricist who is also known as 'Robbie Burns' and 'Scotland's favourite son'. He was a pioneer of the Romantic Movement and he is well known for his poem and song which is called "Auld Lang Syne".

The full poem is given here as it first appeared in a Scottish collection of songs to which the poet contributed. This is a traditional ballad with four verses of four lines each. Burns compares his love with a springtime blooming rose and then a sweet melody. He talks about love being everlasting and then time passes ending in a farewell and promise of its return.

"O my luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' tje sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile."

Answer: Good-Night, Good-Night

Joanna Baillie was born on 11 September 1762, in Bothwell Lanarkshire, Scotland. Joanna was a Scottish poet and dramatist whose poetry was read throughout the English-speaking world, and several of her plays were performed with success.

She was born to a Presbyterian minister and was descended from naturalist Sir William Wallace. It was not until her father died that she started to be interested in poetry. She died on 23 February 1851 and her plays include "The Family Legend"(1810). The lines of the poem are as follows:

"The sun is down, and time gone by,
The stars are twinkling in the sky.
Nor torch nor taper longer may
Eke out a blithe but stinted day;
The hours have passed with stealthy flight,
We needs must part: good-night, good-night!

The lady in her curtained bed,
The herdsman in his wattled shed,
The clansmen in the heathered hall,
Sweet sleep be with you, one and all!
We part in hopes of days as bright
As this gone by: good-night, good-night!
Sweet sleep be with us one and all!
And if upon its stillness fall
The visions of a busy brain
We'll have our pleasures o'er again,
To warm the heart, to charm the sight.
Gay dreams to all! Good-night, good-night!"

The poems used in this quiz are from the "Arthur Mee Children's Encyclopedias".