Poem Game

[megustaleer]

Shamelessly filched from University Challenge

The idea is to post the first four lines of a well-known poem, with all but the last word of each line missing. The players have to identify the poem, and name the author.
The first person to answer correctly posts the next poem.

Usual BGO Game rules apply (see the Anything But Books Forum).
I'll start with an easy one:

- - - - Christmas,
- - - - house
- - - - stirring,
- - - mouse.

[jfp]

'Twas the night before Christmas,
When all through the house

Not a creature was stirring,
Not even a mouse (...)

"A Visit From St. Nicholas", attributed to Clement Clarke Moore


- - - - - things -
- - - - - cow;
- - - - - swim;
- - - - - wings;

[Heather]

Are you absolutely sure you are quoting a well-known poem?

[megustaleer]

'things' and 'wings' has put the walrus and the carpenter into my head, and it pops up every time I look at that clue. Can't get past it.

And I second Heather's question.

[jfp]

Are you absolutely sure you are quoting a well-known poem?Well it's in the BBC book The Nation's Favourite Poems, and it's featured several times on the Poetry Chain thread...

Shall I bend the rules by giving the last two words of the first four lines?

- - - - - dappled things -
- - - - - brinded cow;
- - - - - that swim;
- - - - - finches' wings;

[megustaleer]

Gerard Manley Hopkins - Pied Beauty

Not one I know well, but it's well-enough known for me to recognise it
once 'dappled' was added to the first line.


- - - - - - bloom,
- - - - room;
- - - - - - think,
- - - - pink;

[jfp]

I'd a feeling "dappled" and/or "brinded" might help...

[megustaleer]

- - - - - - bloom,
- - - - room;
- - - - - - think,
- - - - pink;
Clearly this longish poem, by an early C20 poet, is far better known for its last two lines than its first four.

[Heather]

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester - Rupert Brooke.

----------pains
----------drunk,
----------drains
----------sunk:

I feel stupid about the Hopkins poem: I do know it, very well.

[jfp]

Keats - "Ode to a Nightingale"

--------- shame
--------- lust
--------- blame,
--------- trust;

[jfp]

--------- shame
--------- lust
--------- blame,
--------- trust;CLUE TIME: This poem might well be summarized as "Post coitum anima tristis est"... (or, in its mangled version, "Post coitum omne animal triste est"...)

[David]

Hmmm - annoying this! I'd been thinking Metaphysicals - both 'To His Coy Mistress' and 'The Flea' came to mind, though of course neither fits. Right sort of time period?

[jfp]

Right sort of time period?Yes... sort of... the poem in question predates 'To His Coy Mistress' by about... forty years?

[jfp]

--------- shame
--------- lust
--------- blame,
--------- trust;CLUE:unusually, perhaps, this poem includes the word lust (twice in one line, at that...)

[Heather]

Shakespeare's Sonnet 129: 'The expense of spirit in a waste of shame is lust in action ...'

----------- nine
----------- depart
----------- thimble
----------- start.

[Heather]

Hint: this is not a serious poem, though it is by a serious poet.

[Heather]

Further hint: a feline is involved.

[megustaleer]

Of course: Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat
From Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot

There's a whisper down the line at 11.39
When the Night Mail's ready to depart,
Saying 'Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
We must find him or the train can't start.'


- - - - - - - sky,
- - - - - light;
- - - - - - night;
- - - - - - - die.

[megustaleer]

clue: appropriate to the day on which it was posted

[jfp]

I'm confused, Meg...

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

But in my copy of Tennyson, these lines don't come at the beginning of "In Memoriam", but at the start of section CVI [106]. Was that part published as a separate poem?

Anyway, I'm assuming it's that, so:

- - - - - - - - - - - - weary,
- - - - - - - - - - - - lore -
- - - - - - - - - - - - tapping,
- - - - - - - - - - - - door

[megustaleer]

But in my copy of Tennyson, these lines don't come at the beginning of "In Memoriam", but at the start of section CVI [106]. Was that part published as a separate poem?
It was, - on the web page of "New Year Poems" I'd been looking at. :o
I should have known better - sorry all!


- - - - - - - - - - - - weary,
- - - - - - - - - - - - lore -
- - - - - - - - - - - - tapping,
- - - - - - - - - - - - door The Raven - Edgar Allen Poe


- - - - - - -, - - - - - - sky,
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - by,
- - - - - - - - - - - - shaking,
- - - - - - - - - - - - breaking.

[jfp]

I should have known better - sorry all!No, no, it does seem to exist in various places as an independent poem.

[Heather]

How about a clue, Meg?

[megustaleer]

Sorry, I forgot about this - and I had also forgotten what the poem was. :o Luckily a few moments thought brought it back to mind.

Don't know how much of a clue this is, but I have mentioned a couple of times that it is my husband's favourite poem.
It is very well known, and many people, even those not particularly interested in poetry, can quote (or more often misquote) the first line.

[jfp]

Ah... had to do a bit of anthology-browsing:

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

John Masefield, "Sea-Fever"


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - soon,
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - powers:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ours;
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - boon!

[megustaleer]

And just a note or two from a couple of internet discussions about the quote/misquote of that first line:

"The first line of 'Sea Fever' originally began, 'I must go down.' Twenty years later Masefield changed it to 'I must down,' but after twenty more years he put 'go' back. 'Now, alas, I can't make up my mind,' he said."
"Sea Fever"... should the first line read "I must GO down..."? Debatable.
Yes, if we consider the author's own audio recording of the poem to be our
guide, captured in sound with a number of his other works, when he was a
very elderly man; he died in 1967. I have a cassette copy of this recording;
at that great age, to my ear, Masefield sounds very like Gielgud did in his
late years. The "go" is unmissable. However, as a boy in England, I was
taught the version his publishers, Heinemann, originally printed in their
"Collected Works of John Masefield", which I also have; that version omits
the "go".

I generally start off thinking of that line as 'go down', and then mentally delete the 'go', so I appear to have originally learned it one way and have later been told that is wrong.
I've looked in two of my anthologies and found both versions. :rolleyes: