Startling

So, the Tournament of Champions wound up with this Final Jeopardy question, 19th Century Poets:

He wrote "He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die."

I was shaking my head throughout the thirty seconds, thinking this is the Final Jeopardy question for the champions? This?

And then the answers came.

Shelley.

Coleridge.

And the dominating champ says ... Shelley.

Wow.

I memorized that poem in ninth grade. "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", by Oscar Wilde.

It's weird, actually. When they know something I don't, I wonder how they know all that stuff. When I know something they don't, it startles me. I guess I don't think of what I know as "all that stuff", even though I've been known to joke that my head is stuffed with useless facts...