Others

California Prodigal

FOR DAVID P—B

The eye follows, the land
Slips upward, creases down, forms
The gentle buttocks of a young
Giant. In the nestle,
Old adobe bricks, washed of
Whiteness, paled to umber,
Await another century.


Star Jasmine and old vines
Lay claim upon the ghosted land,
Then quiet pools whisper
Private childhood secrets.


Flush on inner cottage walls
Antiquitous faces,
Used to the gelid breath
Of old manors, glare disdainfully
Over breached time.


Around and through these
Cold phantasmatalities,
He walks, insisting
To the languid air,
Activity, music,
A generosity of graces.


His lupin fields spurn old
Deceit and agile poppies dance
In golden riot. Each day is
Fulminant, exploding brightly
Under the gaze of his exquisite
Sires, frozen in the famed paint
Of dead masters. Audacious
Sunlight casts defiance
At their feet.

Alone


Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

In this world of ours,
Yo no naka wa kutte hako shite nete okite
Sate sono ato wa shinuru bakari zo
In this world of ours,
We eat only to cast out,
Sleep only to wake,
And what comes after all that
Is simply to die at last.

A monk sips morning tea
A monk sips morning tea,
it's quiet,
the chrysanthemum's flowering.
Translated by Robert Hass

The Fairy Cave Inscription on a Picture Taken by Comrade Li Chin

Amid the growing shades of dusk stand sturdy pines,
Riotous clouds sweep past, swift and tranquil.
Nature has excelled herself in the Fairy Cave,
On perilous peaks dwells beauty in her infinite variety.

Tapoti


Red, orange, yellow, green,
blue, violet, indigo:
Who is dancing with these
rainbow colours in the sky?
Air after rain, slanting sun:

mountains and passes turning blue
in each changing moment.
Fierce battles that year:
bullet holes in village walls.
These mountains so decorated,

look even more beautiful today.

Snow


North country scene:
A hundred leagues locked in ice,
A thousand leagues of whirling snow.
Both sides of the Great Wall
One single white immensity.
The Yellow River's swift current
Is stilled from end to end.
The mountains dance like silver snakes
And the highlands* charge like wax-hued elephants,
Vying with heaven in stature.
On a fine day, the land,
Clad in white, adorned in red,
Grows more enchanting.


This land so rich in beauty
Has made countless heroes bow in homage.
But alas! Chin Shih-huang and Han Wu-ti
Were lacking in literary grace,
And Tang Tai-tsung and Sung Tai-tsu
Had little poetry in their souls;
And Genghis Khan,
Proud Son of Heaven for a day,
Knew only shooting eagles, bow outstretched
All are past and gone!
For truly great men
Look to this age alone.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat!

" it
was at the great concert given by the

Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

`Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!

How I wonder what you're at!'You know the song, perhaps?" "I've heard something
like it," said Alice. "It goes on, you know," the Hatter continued,
"in this way:


`Up above the world you fly,

Like a teatray in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle '"

The Voice of the Lobster

''Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:
But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.'


'I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
How the Owl and the Panter were sharing a pie:
The Panther took piecrust,
and gravy, and meat,
While the Old had the dish as its share of the treat.
When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,
Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:
While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,
And concluded the banquet by [eating the owl.]

The Palace of Humbug

Lays of Mystery,
Imagination, and Humor


Number 1


I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And each damp thing that creeps and crawls
Went wobblewobble
on the walls.


Faint odours of departed cheese,
Blown on the dank, unwholesome breeze,
Awoke the never ending sneeze.


Strange pictures decked the arras drear,
Strange characters of woe and fear,
The humbugs of the social sphere.


One showed a vain and noisy prig,
That shouted empty words and big
At him that nodded in a wig.


And one, a dotard grim and gray,
Who wasteth childhood's happy day
In work more profitless than play.


Whose icy breast no pity warms,
Whose little victims sit in swarms,
And slowly sob on lower forms.


And one, a green thymehonoured
Bank,
Where flowers are growing wild and rank,
Like weeds that fringe a poisoned tank.


All birds of evil omen there
Flood with rich Notes the tainted air,
The witless wanderer to snare.


The fatal Notes neglected fall,
No creature heeds the treacherous call,
For all those goodly Strawn Baits Pall.


The wandering phantom broke and fled,
Straightway I saw within my head
A vision of a ghostly bed,


Where lay two worn decrepit men,
The fictions of a lawyer's pen,
Who never more might breathe again.


The servingman
of Richard Roe
Wept, inarticulate with woe:
She wept, that waiting on John Doe.



"Oh rouse", I urged, "the waning sense
With tales of tangled evidence,
Of suit, demurrer, and defence."


"Vain", she replied, "such mockeries:
For morbid fancies, such as these,
No suits can suit, no plea can please."


And bending o'er that man of straw,
She cried in grief and sudden awe,
Not inappropriately, "Law!"


The wellremembered
voice he knew,
He smiled, he faintly muttered "Sue!"
(Her very name was legal too.)


The night was fled, the dawn was nigh:
A hurricane went raving by,
And swept the Vision from mine eye.


Vanished that dim and ghostly bed,
(The hangings, tape; the tape was red happy
'Tis o'er, and Doe and Roe are dead!


Oh, yet my spirit inly crawls,
What time it shudderingly recalls
That horrid dream of marble halls!

Preface to Hunting of the Snark

PREFACE

Ifand
the thing is wildly possiblethe
charge of writing
nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but
instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line


``Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes''

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal
indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of
such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral
purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so
cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural
HistoryI
will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining
how it happened.


The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances,
used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be
revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for
replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the
ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to
appeal to the Bellman about ithe
would only refer to his Naval
Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which
none of them had ever been able to understandso
it generally ended
in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman
used to stand by with tears in his eyes: he knew it was all wrong,
but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, ``No one shall speak to the Man at the
Helm'', had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words
``and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one''. So remonstrance
was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next
varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually
sailed backwards.

This office was usually undertaken by the Boots, who found in it
a refuge from the Baker's constant complaints about the insufficient
blacking of his three pairs of boots.


As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the
Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that
has often been asked me, how to pronounce ``slithy toves''. The
``i'' in ``slithy'' is long, as in ``writhe''; and ``toves'' is
pronounced so as to rhyme with ``groves''. Again, the first ``o'' in
``borogoves'' is pronounced like the ``o'' in ``borrow''. I have
heard people try to give it the sound of the ``o'' in ``worry''.
Such is Human Perversity.

This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard words in
that poem. HumptyDumpty's
theory, of two meanings packed into one
word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.

For instance, take the two words ``fuming'' and ``furious''. Make up
your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which


you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts
incline ever so little towards ``fuming'', you will say
``fumingfurious'';
if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards
``furious'', you will say ``furiousfuming'';
but if you have that
rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say
``frumious''.

Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the wellknown
words


``Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!''

Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or
Richard, but had not been able to settle which, so that he could not
possibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that,
rather than die, he would have gasped out ``Rilchiam!''.

'Lewis Carroll'

Preface to Hunting of the Snark

PREFACE

Ifand
the thing is wildly possiblethe
charge of writing
nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but
instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line


``Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes''

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal
indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of
such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral
purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so
cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural
HistoryI
will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining
how it happened.


The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances,
used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be
revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for
replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the
ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to
appeal to the Bellman about ithe
would only refer to his Naval
Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which
none of them had ever been able to understandso
it generally ended
in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman
used to stand by with tears in his eyes: he knew it was all wrong,
but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, ``No one shall speak to the Man at the
Helm'', had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words
``and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one''. So remonstrance
was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next
varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually
sailed backwards.

This office was usually undertaken by the Boots, who found in it
a refuge from the Baker's constant complaints about the insufficient
blacking of his three pairs of boots.


As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the
Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that
has often been asked me, how to pronounce ``slithy toves''. The
``i'' in ``slithy'' is long, as in ``writhe''; and ``toves'' is
pronounced so as to rhyme with ``groves''. Again, the first ``o'' in
``borogoves'' is pronounced like the ``o'' in ``borrow''. I have
heard people try to give it the sound of the ``o'' in ``worry''.
Such is Human Perversity.

This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard words in
that poem. HumptyDumpty's
theory, of two meanings packed into one
word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.

For instance, take the two words ``fuming'' and ``furious''. Make up
your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which


you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts
incline ever so little towards ``fuming'', you will say
``fumingfurious'';
if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards
``furious'', you will say ``furiousfuming'';
but if you have that
rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say
``frumious''.

Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the wellknown
words


``Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!''

Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or
Richard, but had not been able to settle which, so that he could not
possibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that,
rather than die, he would have gasped out ``Rilchiam!''.

'Lewis Carroll'

Photography Extraordinary

The MilkandWater
School
Alas! she would not hear my prayer!
Yet it were rash to tear my hair;
Disfigured, I should be less fair.


She was unwise, I may say blind;
Once she was lovingly inclined;
Some circumstance has changed her mind.


The StrongMinded
or MatterofFact
School
Well! so my offer was no go!
She might do worse, I told her so;
She was a fool to answer "No".


However, things are as they stood;
Nor would I have her if I could,
For there are plenty more as good.


The Spasmodic or German School
Firebrands and Daggers! hope hath fled!
To atoms dash the doubly dead!
My brain is firemy
heart is lead!


Her soul is flint, and what am I?
Scorch'd by her fierce, relentless eye,
Nothingness is my destiny!

Phantasmagoria CANTO IV ( Hys Nouryture )

"OH, when I was a little Ghost,
A merry time had we!
Each seated on his favourite post,
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast
They gave us for our tea."


"That story is in print!" I cried.
"Don't say it's not, because
It's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide!"
(The Ghost uneasily replied
He hardly thought it was).


"It's not in Nursery Rhymes? And yet
I almost think it is '
Three little Ghosteses' were set
'On posteses,' you know, and ate
Their 'buttered toasteses.'


"I have the book; so if you doubt it "
I turned to search the shelf.
"Don't stir!" he cried. "We'll do without it:
I now remember all about it;
I wrote the thing myself.


"It came out in a 'Monthly,' or
At least my agent said it did:
Some literary swell, who saw
It, thought it seemed adapted for
The Magazine he edited.


"My father was a Brownie, Sir;
My mother was a Fairy.
The notion had occurred to her,
The children would be happier,
If they were taught to vary.


"The notion soon became a craze;
And, when it once began, she
Brought us all out in different ways One
was a Pixy, two were Fays,
Another was a Banshee;


"The Fetch and Kelpie went to school
And gave a lot of trouble;
Next came a Poltergeist and Ghoul,
And then two Trolls (which broke the rule),
A Goblin, and a Double


"(If that's a snuffbox
on the shelf,"
He added with a yawn,
"I'll take a pinch) next
came an Elf,
And then a Phantom (that's myself),



And last, a Leprechaun.


"One day, some Spectres chanced to call,
Dressed in the usual white:
I stood and watched them in the hall,
And couldn't make them out at all,
They seemed so strange a sight.


"I wondered what on earth they were,
That looked all head and sack;
But Mother told me not to stare,
And then she twitched me by the hair,
And punched me in the back.


"Since then I've often wished that I
Had been a Spectre born.
But what's the use?" (He heaved a sigh.)
"THEY are the ghostnobility,
And look on US with scorn.


"My phantomlife
was soon begun:
When I was barely six,
I went out with an older one And
just at first I thought it fun,
And learned a lot of tricks.


"I've haunted dungeons, castles, towers Wherever
I was sent:
I've often sat and howled for hours,
Drenched to the skin with driving showers,
Upon a battlement.


"It's quite oldfashioned
now to groan
When you begin to speak:
This is the newest thing in tone "
And here (it chilled me to the bone)
He gave an AWFUL squeak.


"Perhaps," he added, "to YOUR ear
That sounds an easy thing?
Try it yourself, my little dear!
It took ME something like a year,
With constant practising.


"And when you've learned to squeak, my man,
And caught the double sob,
You're pretty much where you began:
Just try and gibber if you can!
That's something LIKE a job!


"I'VE tried it, and can only say
I'm sure you couldn't do it, e



ven if you practised night and day,
Unless you have a turn that way,
And natural ingenuity.


"Shakspeare I think it is who treats
Of Ghosts, in days of old,
Who 'gibbered in the Roman streets,'
Dressed, if you recollect, in sheets They
must have found it cold.


"I've often spent ten pounds on stuff,
In dressing as a Double;
But, though it answers as a puff,
It never has effect enough
To make it worth the trouble.


"Long bills soon quenched the little thirst
I had for being funny.
The settingup
is always worst:
Such heaps of things you want at first,
One must be made of money!


"For instance, take a Haunted Tower,
With skull, crossbones,
and sheet;
Blue lights to burn (say) two an hour,
Condensing lens of extra power,
And set of chains complete:


"What with the things you have to hire The
fitting on the robe And
testing all the coloured fire The
outfit of itself would tire
The patience of a Job!


"And then they're so fastidious,
The HauntedHouse
Committee:
I've often known them make a fuss
Because a Ghost was French, or Russ,
Or even from the City!


"Some dialects are objected to For
one, the IRISH brogue is:
And then, for all you have to do,
One pound a week they offer you,
And find yourself in Bogies!

I'll Tell Thee Everything I Can

I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate,
I saw an aged, aged man,
Asitting
on a gate.
'Who are you, aged man?' I said.
'And how is it you live?'
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.


He said, 'I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat;
I make them into muttonpies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,' he said,
'Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread
A trifle, if you please.'


But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one's whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, 'Come, tell me how you live!'
And thumped him on the head.


His accents mild took up the tale;
He said, 'I go my ways,
And when I find a mountainrill,
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland's Macassar Oil
Yet twopencehalfpenny
is all
They give me for my toil.'


But I was thinking of a way
To feed one's self on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue,
'Come, tell me how you live,' I cried,
'And what it is you do!'


He said, 'I hunt for haddocks' eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoatbuttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny,



And that will purchase nine.


'I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of hansomcabs.
And that's the way' (he gave a wink)
'By which I get my wealth
And very gladly will I drink
Your honor's noble health.'


I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.


And now, if e'er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a righthand
foot
Into a lefthand
shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo
That summer evening long ago,
Asitting
on a gate.

Fit the Sixth ( Hunting of the Snark )

The Barrister's Dream

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railwayshare;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
But the Barrister, weary of proving in vain
That the Beaver's lacemaking
was wrong,
Fell asleep, and in dreams saw the creature quite plain
That his fancy had dwelt on so long.


He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court,
Where the Snark, with a glass in its eye,
Dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig
On the charge of deserting its sty.


The Witnesses proved, without error or flaw,
That the sty was deserted when found:
And the Judge kept explaining the state of the law
In a soft undercurrent
of sound.


The indictment had never been clearly expressed,
And it seemed that the Snark had begun,
And had spoken three hours, before any one guessed
What the pig was supposed to have done.


The Jury had each formed a different view
(Long before the indictment was read),
And they all spoke at once, so that none of them knew
One word that the others had said.


"You must know"
said the Judge: but the Snark exclaimed "Fudge!"
That statute is obsolete quite!
Let me tell you, my friends, the whole question depends
On an ancient manorial right.


"In the matter of Treason the pig would appear
To have aided, but scarcely abetted:
While the charge of Insolvency fails, it is clear,
If you grant the plea 'never indebted'.


"The fact of Desertion I will not dispute:
But its guilt, as I trust, is removed
(So far as relates to the costs of this suit)
By the Alibi which has been proved.


"My poor client's fate now depends on your votes."
Here the speaker sat down in his place,
And directed the Judge to refer to his notes
And briefly to sum up the case.


But the Judge said he never had summed up before;



So the Snark undertook it instead,
And summed it so well that it came to far more
Than the Witnesses ever had said!


When the verdict was called for, the Jury declined,
As the word was so puzzling to spell;
But they ventured to hope that the Snark wouldn't mind
Undertaking that duty as well.


So the Snark found the verdict, although, as it owned,
It was spent with the toils of the day:
When it said the word "GUILTY!" the Jury all groaned
And some of them fainted away.


Then the Snark pronounced sentence, the Judge being quite
Too nervous to utter a word:
When it rose to its feet, there was silence like night,
And the fall of a pin might be heard.


"Transportation for life" was the sentence it gave,
"And then to be fined forty pound."
The Jury all cheered, though the Judge said he feared
That the phrase was not legally sound.


But their wild exultation was suddenly checked
When the jailer informed them, with tears,
Such a sentence would not have the slightest effect,
As the pig had been dead for some years.


The Judge left the Court, looking deeply disgusted
But the Snark, though a little aghast,
As the lawyer to whom the defence was intrusted,
Went bellowing on to the last.


Thus the Barrister dreamed, while the bellowing seemed
To grow every moment more clear:
Till he woke to the knell of a furious bell,
Which the Bellman rang close at his ear.

Four Riddles

I

There was an ancient City, stricken down
With a strange frenzy, and for many a day
They paced from morn to eve the crowded town,
And danced the night away.


I asked the cause: the aged man grew sad:
They pointed to a building gray and tall,
And hoarsely answered "Step inside, my lad,
And then you'll see it all."


Yet what are all such gaieties to me
Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?


x*x + 7x + 53 = 11/3


But something whispered "It will soon be done:
Bands cannot always play, nor ladies smile:
Endure with patience the distasteful fun
For just a little while!"


A change came o'er my Vision it
was night:
We clove a pathway through a frantic throng:
The steeds, wildplunging,
filled us with affright:
The chariots whirled along.


Within a marble hall a river ran A
living tide, half muslin and half cloth:
And here one mourned a broken wreath or fan,
Yet swallowed down her wrath;


And here one offered to a thirsty fair
(His words halfdrowned
amid those thunders tuneful)
Some frozen viand (there were many there),
A toothache
in each spoonful.


There comes a happy pause, for human strength
Will not endure to dance without cessation;
And every one must reach the point at length
Of absolute prostration.


At such a moment ladies learn to give,
To partners who would urge them overmuch,
A flat and yet decided negative Photographers
love such.


There comes a welcome summons hope
revives,
And fading eyes grow bright, and pulses quicken:
Incessant pop the corks, and busy knives
Dispense the tongue and chicken.



Flushed with new life, the crowd flows back again:
And all is tangled talk and mazy motion Much
like a waving field of golden grain,
Or a tempestuous ocean.


And thus they give the time, that Nature meant
For peaceful sleep and meditative snores,
To ceaseless din and mindless merriment
And waste of shoes and floors.


And One (we name him not) that flies the flowers,
That dreads the dances, and that shuns the salads,
They doom to pass in solitude the hours,
Writing acrosticballads.


How late it grows! The hour is surely past
That should have warned us with its double knock?
The twilight wanes, and morning comes at last "
Oh, Uncle, what's o'clock?"


The Uncle gravely nods, and wisely winks.
It MAY mean much, but how is one to know?
He opens his mouth yet
out of it, methinks,
No words of wisdom flow.


II


Empress of Art, for thee I twine
This wreath with all too slender skill.
Forgive my Muse each halting line,
And for the deed accept the will!


O day of tears! Whence comes this spectre grim,
Parting, like Death's cold river, souls that love?
Is not he bound to thee, as thou to him,
By vows, unwhispered here, yet heard above?


And still it lives, that keen and heavenward flame,
Lives in his eye, and trembles in his tone:
And these wild words of fury but proclaim
A heart that beats for thee, for thee alone!


But all is lost: that mighty mind o'erthrown,
Like sweet bells jangled, piteous sight to see!
"Doubt that the stars are fire," so runs his moan,
"Doubt Truth herself, but not my love for thee!"


A sadder vision yet: thine aged sire
Shaming his hoary locks with treacherous wile!



And dost thou now doubt Truth to be a liar?
And wilt thou die, that hast forgot to smile?


Nay, get thee hence! Leave all thy winsome ways
And the faint fragrance of thy scattered flowers:
In holy silence wait the appointed days,
And weep away the leadenfooted
hours.


III.
The air is bright with hues of light
And rich with laughter and with singing:
Young hearts beat high in ecstasy,
And banners wave, and bells are ringing:
But silence falls with fading day,
And there's an end to mirth and play.
Ah, welladay


Rest your old bones, ye wrinkled crones!
The kettle sings, the firelight dances.
Deep be it quaffed, the magic draught
That fills the soul with golden fancies!
For Youth and Pleasance will not stay,
And ye are withered, worn, and gray.
Ah, welladay!


O fair cold face! O form of grace,
For human passion madly yearning!
O weary air of dumb despair,
From marble won, to marble turning!
"Leave us not thus!" we fondly pray.
"We cannot let thee pass away!"
Ah, welladay!


IV.
My First is singular at best:
More plural is my Second:
My Third is far the pluralest So
pluralplural,
I protest
It scarcely can be reckoned!


My First is followed by a bird:
My Second by believers
In magic art: my simple Third
Follows, too often, hopes absurd
And plausible deceivers.


My First to get at wisdom tries A
failure melancholy!



My Second men revered as wise:
My Third from heights of wisdom flies
To depths of frantic folly.


My First is ageing day by day:
My Second's age is ended:
My Third enjoys an age, they say,
That never seems to fade away,
Through centuries extended.


My Whole? I need a poet's pen
To paint her myriad phases:
The monarch, and the slave, of men A
mountainsummit,
and a den
Of dark and deadly mazes


A flashing light a
fleeting shade Beginning,
end, and middle
Of all that human art hath made
Or wit devised! Go, seek HER aid,
If you would read my riddle!

Fit the Second ( Hunting of the Snark )

The Bellman's Speech

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skiesSuch
a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
The moment one looked in his face!
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.


"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
"They are merely conventional signs!


"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank"
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the bestA
perfect and absolute blank!"


This was charming, no doubt: but they shortly found out
That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean
And that was to tingle his bell.


He was thoughtful and gravebut
the orders he gave
Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried "Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!"
What on earth was the helmsman to do?


Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes:
A thing, as the Bellman remarked,
That frequently happens in tropical climes,
When a vessel is, so to speak, "snarked".


But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
That the ship would not travel due West!


But the danger was pastthey
had landed at last,
With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:
Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view
Which consisted of chasms and crags.


The Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,
And repeated in musical tone
Some jokes he had kept for a season of woeBut
the crew would do nothing but groan.


He served out some grog with a liberal hand,



And bade them sit down on the beach:
And they could not but own that their Captain looked grand,
As he stood and delivered his speech.


"Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears!"
(They were all of them fond of quotations:
So they drank to his health, and they gave him three cheers,
While he served out additional rations).


"We have sailed many months, we have sailed many weeks,
(Four weeks to the month you may mark),
But never as yet ('tis your Captain who speaks)
Have we caught the least glimpse of a Snark!


"We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,
(Seven days to the week I allow),
But a Snark, on the which we might lovingly gaze,
We have never beheld till now!


"Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again
The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wheresoever you go,
The warranted genuine Snarks.


"Let us take them in order. The first is the taste,
Which is meagre and hollow, but crisp:
Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,
With a flavour of Willo'
theWisp.


"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at fiveo'clock
tea,
And dines on the following day.


"The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
And it always looks grave at a pun.


"The fourth is its fondness for bathingmachines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenesA
sentiment open to doubt.


"The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
From those that have whiskers, and scratch.


"For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet I feel it my duty to say
Some are Boojums"
The Bellman broke off in alarm,



For the Baker had fainted away.

Fame's Penny-Trumpet

Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack,
Ye little men of little souls!
And bid them huddle at your back Goldsucking
leeches, shoals on shoals!


Fill all the air with hungry wails "
Reward us, ere we think or write!
Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails
To sate the swinish appetite!"


And, where great Plato paced serene,
Or Newton paused with wistful eye,
Rush to the chace with hoofs unclean
And Babelclamour
of the sty


Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise:
We will not rob them of their due,
Nor vex the ghosts of other days
By naming them along with you.


They sought and found undying fame:
They toiled not for reward nor thanks:
Their cheeks are hot with honest shame
For you, the modern mountebanks!


Who preach of Justice plead
with tears
That Love and Mercy should abound While
marking with complacent ears
The moaning of some tortured hound:


Who prate of Wisdom nay,
forbear,
Lest Wisdom turn on you in wrath,
Trampling, with heel that will not spare,
The vermin that beset her path!


Go, throng each other's drawingrooms,
Ye idols of a petty clique:
Strut your brief hour in borrowed plumes,
And make your pennytrumpets
squeak.


Deck your dull talk with pilfered shreds
Of learning from a nobler time,
And oil each other's little heads
With mutual Flattery's golden slime:


And when the topmost height ye gain,
And stand in Glory's ether clear,
And grasp the prize of all your pain So
many hundred pounds a year


Then let Fame's banner be unfurled!
Sing Paeans for a victory won!



Ye tapers, that would light the world,
And cast a shadow on the Sun


Who still shall pour His rays sublime,
One crystal flood, from East to West,
When YE have burned your little time
And feebly flickered into rest!

Echoes


Lady Clara Vere de Vere
Was eight years old, she said:
Every ringlet, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden thread.


She took her little porringer:
Of me she shall not win renown:
For the baseness of its nature shall have strength to drag her
down.


"Sisters and brothers, little Maid?
There stands the Inspector at thy door:
Like a dog, he hunts for boys who know not two and two are four."


"Kind words are more than coronets,"
She said, and wondering looked at me:
"It is the dead unhappy night, and I must hurry home to tea."

Dedication


Inscribed to a Dear Child:
In Memory of Golden Summer Hours
And Whispers of a Summer Sea


Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
The tale he loves to tell.
Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem if you list, such hours a waste of life,
Empty of all delight!


Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy
Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,
The heartlove
of a child!

Bessie's Song To Her Doll

Matilda Jane, you never look
At any toy or picturebook.
I show you pretty things in vain
You must be blind, Matilda Jane!


I ask you riddles, tell you tales,
But all our conversation fails.
You never answer me again
I fear you're dumb, Matilda Jane!


Matilda darling, when I call,
You never seem to hear at all.
I shout with all my might and main
But you're so deaf, Matilda Jane!


Matilda Jane, you needn't mind,
For, though you're deaf and dumb and blind,
There's some one loves you, it is plain
And that is me, Matilda Jane!

Alice And The White Knight

Alice was walking beside the White Knight in Looking Glass Land.

'You are sad.' the Knight said in an anxious tone: 'let me sing you a song to comfort
you.'


'Is it very long?' Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.


'It's long.' said the Knight, 'but it's very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing
it either
it brings tears to their eyes, or else '


'Or else what?' said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.


'Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes.''


'Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice said, trying to feel interested.


'No, you don't understand,' the Knight said, looking a little vexed. 'That's what the
name
is called. The name really is 'The Aged, Aged Man.''


'Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?' Alice corrected herself.


'No you oughtn't: that's another thing. The song is called 'Ways and Means' but that's
only
what it's called, you know!'


'Well, what is the song then?' said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.


'I was coming to that,' the Knight said. 'The song really is 'Asitting
On a Gate': and the
tune's my own invention.'


So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: then slowly beating
time
with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting up his gentle, foolish face, he began:


I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged, aged man,
Asitting
on a gate.
'Who are you, aged man?' I said,
' And how is it you live?'
And his answer trickled through my head
like water through a sieve.


He said 'I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,' he said,
'Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread



A trifle if you please.'


But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one's whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, 'Come tell me how you live!'
And thumped him on the head.


His accents mild took up the tale:
He said, 'I go my ways,
And when I find a mountainrill,
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland's Macassar Oil Yet
twopencehalfpenny
is all
They give me for my toil.'


But I was thinking of a way
To feed one's self on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side
Until his face was blue:
'Come tell me how you live,' I cried,
'And what it is you do!'


He said 'I hunt for haddocks' eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.


'I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search for grassy knolls
For wheels of hansomcabs.
And that's the way' (he gave a wink)
'By which I get my wealth And
very gladly will I drink
Your Honour's noble health.'


I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai Bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.



I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for the wish that he
Might drink my noble health.


And now if e'er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a righthand
foot
Into a lefthand
shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know Whose
look was mild, whose speech was slow
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo That
summer evening long ago
Asitting
on a gate.


As the Knight sang the last words of the ballad, he gathered up the reins, and turned
his horse's head along the road by which they had come.

Wisdom and War

We do not care-
That much is clear.
Not enough
Of us care
Anywhere.
We are not wise-
For that reason,
Mankind dies.
To think
Is much against
The will.
Better-
And easier-
To kill.