The stampboards Quiz Of The Day

[satsuma]

Well number 11 is about Horatio defending the bridge but I've got no idea what the first line is and if I remember correctly it's got 100s of lines.

[Bill H UK]

22 is 'She walks in beauty, like the night'.
Had to Google it so no points, but I knew it sounded familiar.
It's also the first line of 'Heroine' by the band Suede.

[nigelc]

Well number 11 is about Horatio defending the bridge but I've got no idea what the first line is and if I remember correctly it's got 100s of lines.

Tick

It's a great story and a very long poem.

The hero doesn't get a mention until verse 20!

11. Horatius at the Bridge by Thomas Babington Macaulay

Lars Porsena of Clusium,
By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it,
And named a trysting-day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.

[nigelc]

22 is 'She walks in beauty, like the night'.
Had to Google it so no points, but I knew it sounded familiar.
It's also the first line of 'Heroine' by the band Suede.

Tick

Thanks for the reminder of Suede.

22. She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

[RogerE]

Not the correct answer, but #18 made me think of

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream

/RogerE

[Bill H UK]

22 is 'She walks in beauty, like the night'.
Had to Google it so no points, but I knew it sounded familiar.
It's also the first line of 'Heroine' by the band Suede.

Tick

Thanks for the reminder of Suede.

22. She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

Suedes lyric:
She walks in beauty like the night
Discarding her clothes in the plastic flowers
Pornographic and tragic in black and white
My Marilyn come to my slum for an hour

Not exactly Byron, but then he was rubbish on lead guitar.

[nigelc]

Thanks Roger and Bill.

Thanks too to all participants in this quiz.

Here are the first few lines of the remaining poems:

8. Abou Ben Adhem by Leigh Hunt

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

10. Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

13. Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold,

Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

14. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

18. A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What The Heart of The Young Man Said to the Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

19. Holy Sonnet 10: Death, be not proud by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

20. Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

32. Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

33. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot

(Following a six-line quotation in Italian from Dante's Inferno)

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

[Ubobo.R.O.]

BIGSAINTS FAVOURITE POEM.
One One was a racehorse,
Two Two was one too,
One One won one race,
And Two Two won one too !

[BigSaint]

[RogerE]

Thanks Nigel for the excellent poetry quiz, and even better, the "answers".
Do you have them all accurately stored in your memory?

As for Puffin and his favourite poem, it could be posted under the
Molesworth heading "Verse and Worse", rehearsed first by the grassy knoll...

/RogerE

[satsuma]

A few classics were missed out:

2nd lines

"And he stoppeth one of three"


"Shining with all his might"



And for the Aussies
"Of green and shaded lanes"

[Bill H UK]

A few classics were missed out:

2nd lines

"And he stoppeth one of three"


"Shining with all his might"



And for the Aussies
"Of green and shaded lanes"

Oh, I know the first one!

"It is an ancient cricketer,
And he stoppeth one in three,
The others whistle past his ear,
Or strike him on the knee.

[BigSaint]

A few classics were missed out:

2nd lines

"And he stoppeth one of three"


"Shining with all his might"



And for the Aussies
"Of green and shaded lanes"

The one for the Aussies:

My Country - Dorothea McKellar:

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.

Perhaps some might recognise it by it's second verse:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!

[satsuma]

The one for the Aussies:

My Country - Dorothea McKellar:

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.


Correct

[BigSaint]

A few classics were missed out:

2nd lines

"And he stoppeth one of three"


"Shining with all his might"



And for the Aussies
"Of green and shaded lanes"

The middle one.

The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might

[BigSaint]

BIGSAINTS FAVOURITE POEM.
One One was a racehorse,
Two Two was one too,
One One won one race,
And Two Two won one too !

Following on from Mr Puffin's comment on my favourite poems, I thought while we are waiting for the next quiz that maybe you can work out these from the second line of these Aussie poems - Name of poem, author & first line if you can.

1. He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;

2. He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.

3. In the days before the bushman was a dull an' heartless drudge,

4. Old man, you've had your work cut out to guide.

[satsuma]

A few classics were missed out:

2nd lines

"And he stoppeth one of three"


"Shining with all his might"



And for the Aussies
"Of green and shaded lanes"

The middle one.

The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might

Correct

[RogerE]

Hello Nigel. Did you notice my enquiry?

Thanks Nigel for the excellent poetry quiz, and even better, the "answers".
Do you have them all accurately stored in your memory?
/RogerE

My schooling didn't put any emphasis on memorisation of poems, so I can recite/quote very few lines
from memory, though I do recognise many poems which I read/"studied" in school, or subsequently.
However, the curriculum did include most of the poems you chose. (In fact, the whole curriculum
was heavily oriented towards things British, to the neglect of much Australian. For example, much
about British history, with comparatively little about Australian history.)

On the other hand, I have a philatelic friend whose education was in England at around the same time
as my schooling: he has an extensive fund of memorised poetry which he can still recite at will. Since
he emigrated to Australia as a young man, he has also acquired/memorised much about Australian
history that I don't have at my fingertips! Evidently the skill/discipline of memorisation has stayed with
him as a lifelong ability...

I suspect that memorisation of poetry might now have entirely disappeared from curricula in both countries...

/RogerE

[Ubobo.R.O.]

There are FIFTY ONE words on my list.

[BigSaint]

Got, goat, oat, tog, toga, ago, ego, ogre, gore, goer, opt, top, pot, port, prop, pore, rope

[satsuma]

A few classics were missed out:

2nd lines

"And he stoppeth one of three"

Well either no-one knows this poem, or cares to post the answer.

It's from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

It is an ancient mariner
And he stoppeth one of three
Etc, etc, etc.

[satsuma]

Portage, apportage?

[BigSaint]

A few classics were missed out:

2nd lines

"And he stoppeth one of three"

Well either no-one knows this poem, or cares to post the answer.

It's from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

It is an ancient mariner
And he stoppeth one of three
Etc, etc, etc.

Sorry Satsuma I thought that all of yours had been answered.

But no one answered mine either.

[Ubobo.R.O.]

Got, goat, oat, toga, ago, ego, ogre, gore, goer, opt, top, pot, port, prop, pore, rope.

TICK x 16.

[Ubobo.R.O.]

Portage.

Tick.

[BigSaint]

BIGSAINTS FAVOURITE POEM.
One One was a racehorse,
Two Two was one too,
One One won one race,
And Two Two won one too !

Following on from Mr Puffin's comment on my favourite poems, I thought while we are waiting for the next quiz that maybe you can work out these from the second line of these Aussie poems - Name of poem, author & first line if you can.

1. He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;

MULGA BILL'S BICYCLE by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;

2. He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.

The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.

3. In the days before the bushman was a dull an' heartless drudge,

The Grog-An'Grumble Steeplechase by Henry Lawson

Twixt the coastline and the border lay the town of Grog-an'-Grumble
In the days before the bushman was a dull 'n' heartless drudge,

4. Old man, you've had your work cut out to guide.

The Sick Stockrider by Adam Lindsay Gordon

HOLD hard, Ned ! Lift me down once more, and lay me in the shade.
Old man, you've had your work cut out to guide

Answers in RED above.

[BigSaint]

Oar, aorta, rota, toe, toer, tore, rote, tope, poet, pop, pope, atop

[Ubobo.R.O.]

Oar, aorta, rota, toe, tore, rote, tope, poet, pop, pope, atop.

TICK x 11.

[satsuma]

Opera, groat, grope, grot, trope

[Ubobo.R.O.]

Opera, groat, grope, trope

TICK x 4.

[RogerE]

PORE, TOPPER, ROTE, ROTA, APORT, POET

Oohh,sorry — I see some of these have already been snapped up.

[satsuma]

prop, propagate.

[Ubobo.R.O.]

propagate.

Tick.

[nigelc]

Thanks Nigel for the excellent poetry quiz, and even better, the "answers".
Do you have them all accurately stored in your memory?
/RogerE

Thank you Roger.

No, I'm afraid I don't know them by heart, just a few lines here and there.

I found an online reference to get a reliable source for the poems and quickly found that apart from the lines I didn't remember at all there were quite a few that were not exactly the way the I had been reciting them to myself over the years.

I don't remember learning poetry by heart at school but I did learn quite a few myself for fun, mostly short humorous poems or at least parts of some longer ones that had made a huge impression such as The Tyger:

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

I had a Puffin collection of Hilaire Belloc's poems and many of these have stuck:

The Hippopotamus

I shoot the Hippopotamus
with bullets made of platinum,
Because if I use leaden ones
his hide is sure to flatten 'em.

Not exactly Keats or Shelley but it keeps me amused!

[nigelc]

appro, ergo, ergot, gator, poa, taro

You may have missed Roger's topper and aport?

[Ubobo.R.O.]

PORE, TOPPER, ROTE, ROTA, APORT, POET

Oohh,sorry — I see some of these have already been snapped up.

No new answers.

[Ubobo.R.O.]

ergo, ergot, taro.

TICK x 3.

Fifteen answers still needed.

[nigelc]

argot, ope, prog, repo, repot, toper

[Ubobo.R.O.]

argot, repo.

TICK x 2.

[nigelc]

agora, epopt, opter, orate, ore, pro

[nigelc]

ora, pareo, porge, proa, roe, toea,

[Ubobo.R.O.]

agora, orate, ore, pro

TICK X 4.

[Ubobo.R.O.]

roe.

Tick.


EIGHT answers still needed. A3 P2 R2 T1

[nigelc]

potage, protea, rego, tor, trog

[Ubobo.R.O.]

potage, protea, rego, tor.

TICK x 4.

[nigelc]

aero, apport

[Ubobo.R.O.]

aero.

Tick.

Three words needed. Ag---- Ao---- Ro-

[nigelc]

agorae, aortae, roa, rop

[Ubobo.R.O.]

agorae, aortae.

Tick x 2.

[nigelc]

oops!

... rot !