Wednesday 6 August 2014

The Wednesday Quiz: Beat Poets

Welcome back to a new season of the Leaflocker Wednesday Quiz. The rules remain the same as from time immemorial, ten points for a starter question, and a further...No wait, hang on. That's not right... Participants have a week to post their answers in the comments, close answers may be given the benefit of the doubt based on the whims of the editorial staff, especially for those playing from overseas. Google and references of any kind are an affront to Gods old and new and there shall be a day of judgement. It's all very competitive and serious.

This week's quiz is a game of that old classic: "name that poet whose works have been mashed together", which could admittedly do with a snappier title. All you have to do is name these poets to win points for your team. Don't be scared to guess, and leave your working out, sometimes we give credit for trying.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,
Of more delight than hawks and horses be;
And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:
Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives
Said he, 'I think it's much more fun
Than getting stuck with only one.'
Augustus Gloop! Augustus Gloop!
The great big greedy nincompoop!
How long could we allow this beast
To gorge and guzzle, feed and feast
Our class was full of one-eared boys. I'm certain there were eight.
Who'd had them twisted off because they didn't know a date.
So let us now praise teachers who today are all so fine
And yours in particular is totally divine.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
As fair art thou, my bonie lass, so deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my dear, till a' the seas gang dry.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?
Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd,
Or cutty sarks rin in your mind,
Think! ye may buy the joys o'er dear:
Remember Tam o Shanter's mare.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.
As a social institution 'twas a marvellous success,
For the members were distinguished by exclusiveness and dress.
They had natty little ponies that were nice, and smooth, and sleek,
For their cultivated owners only rode 'em once a week.
"Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, By George, I've had enough,
One tried to cut my bloomin' throat, but thank the Lord it's tough."
And whether he's believed or no, there's one thing to remark,
That flowing beards are all the go way up in Ironbark.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the others tale —
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet, as we wrenched them apart, 
I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder’s heart. 
As he had written and pleaded, so did I understand 
The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned
Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother,
For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is their mother.
"There is none like to me!" says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill;
But the Jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still.

He can pick any card from a pack,
He is equally cunning with dice;
He is always deceiving you into believing
That he's only hunting for mice.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
How can they use such names and be not humble?
I have sat silent; angry at what they uttered.
The dead bequeathed them life; the dead have said
What these can only memorise and mumble.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

4 comments:

John said...

Ack, poetry is not my strong suit. I doubt I'll manage many.

You start off with the Bard. We have Roald Dahl to thank for Augustus Gloop, and your second-last paragraph is packed with T.S. Eliot (kicking off with Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats).

I think that's it for me.

Michael5000 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael5000 said...

1: Big Willy Stratford
2: I know most of these, but I don't know who wrote 'em. Hail, Mary: Roald Dahl?
3. Burrrrrrrns
4. A Noted Australian Poet
5. Ooh, who wrote Ozymandias? Crrrrrap. Issat Shelley?
6. T.S. Elliot
7. This, he said cleverly, would be a War Poet. Which means I'll guess Winfred Owen, without conviction.
8. I believe we are doing Keats here.

BOOM! Where's my prize?

UnwiseOwl said...

1. Big Willy Indeed. If I ever write a Shakespeare rap I'm incorporating this name, now.
2. Augustus Gloop is a giveaway, no. It's Dahl.
3. It's Burns. I mean, the brogue, who else could get away with that nonsense?
4. It's Patterson. Michael, learn your Noted Australian Poets.
5. Going on about jungles, scared of women? Gotta be Kipling.
6. Cats everywhere. Gotta be Eliot.
7. It's a war poet, but it doesn't feel like Owens...gotta be Sassoon!
8. Keats indeed.

Nice work to Michael with 6 when we include his Transpacific bonus. 3 for John.