h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I got this idea from a question on last week's University Challenge (a TV quiz for students).

These are the last words of the first four lines of a well-known poem.

Can you identify the author?

* * *

Tree
sat
see
Hat

* * *

If you correctly identify it, then I'd like you to to submit another one for us to guess There's no reason to stick to poetry, either. Song lyrics are a good source - or anything, really. Just make it a well-known one.

Over to you...

The Quangle Wangle's Hat by Edward Lear

tune
me
song
key

With A Little Help From My Friends, by the Beatles.

heaven
try
us
sky

Imagine - John Lennon

* * *

I
sky
table
streets

I thought this would go more quickly.

To hurry it along, it's probably the best-known work of a Nobel Prize-winning American poet, published in 1915

If you mean TS ELiot, we don't claim him as American. He deserted, so we figure he wanted to be called British.

I don't know his poetry by heart, so I'm afraid I can't identify that one.

We're deeply distrustful of American imports

You are correct, by the way (I only asked for the Author).

So, over to you for the next one

A favourite from one of my favourite American poets. (He stayed put, except when he got jailed in France during WWI.)

souls
minds
blessings
spirited

archie the cockroach!

Er, ee cummings, I mean.

Here's a really easy one, if you know your poets

—
U
—
U

— is the last word in the line?

I have simply no idea, but I'm intrigued to find out

U - could be the vowels in the alphabet (go round and round)A E I O U

I O U?

I U?

Nothing compares 2 U?

Just checking whether anyone knew. It's misleading because I spelled "U" wrong, but h2g2 wouldn't accept the code for the real symbol - we'd probably have seen it in Barlesque.

It's "Fisches Nachtgesang" - "the lullaby of the fish" - by Christian Morgenstern, and before anyone tells me off for picking a German one, here's the full text:

http://radicalart.info/nothing/text/fisches-nachtgesang-1905-s.jpg

Believe it or not, it's a parody of a Goethe poem.

So now for a proper one (and that's a hint):

seas
buccaneer
knees
ear

I have read this, years ago, in a children's poetry book, but I couldn't tell you who wrote it. I only remember it's about a child fantasising about being a pirate (or something).

Not quite - I doubt it would be in a children's book!

OK, my memory has faded in that case.

It is about *someone* fantasising about being a pirate, though.

O if I were a pirate, sailing the seven seas,
I'd give a prize to every buccaneer
Who brought me in a nobleman, trembling, on his knees,
Telling of gold. I'd slash 'im, ear to ear...


Something like that?