[ { "title": "Lays of Sorrow", "author": "Lewis Carroll", "lines": [ "The day was wet, the rain fell souse", "Like jars of strawberry jam, [1] a", "sound was heard in the old henhouse,", "A beating of a hammer.", "Of stalwart form, and visage warm,", "Two youths were seen within it,", "Splitting up an old tree into perches for their poultry", "At a hundred strokes [2] a minute.", "The work is done, the hen has taken", "Possession of her nest and eggs,", "Without a thought of eggs and bacon, [3]", "(Or I am very much mistaken happy)", "She turns over each shell,", "To be sure that all's well,", "Looks into the straw", "To see there's no flaw,", "Goes once round the house, [4]", "Half afraid of a mouse,", "Then sinks calmly to rest", "On the top of her nest,", "First doubling up each of her legs.", "Time rolled away, and so did every shell,", "\"Small by degrees and beautifully less,\"", "As the large mother with a powerful spell [5]", "Forced each in turn its contents to express, [6]", "But ah! \"imperfect is expression,\"", "Some poet said, I don't care who,", "If you want to know you must go elsewhere,", "One fact I can tell, if you're willing to hear,", "He never attended a Parliament Session,", "For I'm certain that if he had ever been there,", "Full quickly would he have changed his ideas,", "With the hissings, the hootings, the groans and the cheers.", "And as to his name it is pretty clear", "That it wasn't me and it wasn't you!", "", "And so it fell upon a day,", "(That is, it never rose again)", "A chick was found upon the hay,", "Its little life had ebbed away.", "No longer frolicsome and gay,", "No longer could it run or play.", "\"And must we, chicken, must we part?\"", "Its master [7] cried with bursting heart,", "And voice of agony and pain.", "So one, whose ticket's marked \"Return\", [8]", "When to the lonely roadside station", "He flies in fear and perturbation,", "Thinks of his home--the hissing urn--", "Then runs with flying hat and hair,", "And, entering, finds to his despair", "He's missed the very last train. [9]", "", "Too long it were to tell of each conjecture", "Of chicken suicide, and poultry victim,", "The deadly frown, the stern and dreary lecture,", "The timid guess, \"perhaps some needle pricked him!\"", "The din of voice, the words both loud and many,", "The sob, the tear, the sigh that none could smother,", "Till all agreed \"a shilling to a penny", "It killed itself, and we acquit the mother!\"", "Scarce was the verdict spoken,", "When that still calm was broken,", "A childish form hath burst into the throng;", "With tears and looks of sadness,", "That bring no news of gladness,", "But tell too surely something hath gone wrong!", "\"The sight I have come upon", "The stoutest heart [10] would sicken,", "That nasty hen has been and gone", "And killed another chicken!\"" ], "linecount": "69" }, { "title": "The Palace of Humbug", "author": "Lewis Carroll", "lines": [ "Lays of Mystery,", "Imagination, and Humor", "", "Number 1", "", "I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,", "And each damp thing that creeps and crawls", "Went wobble-wobble 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 thyme-honoured 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 serving-man 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 well-remembered 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!" ], "linecount": "60" }, { "title": "Another Acrostic ( In the style of Father William )", "author": "Lewis Carroll", "lines": [ "\"Are you deaf, Father William!\" the young man said,", "\"Did you hear what I told you just now?", "\"Excuse me for shouting! Don't waggle your head", "\"Like a blundering, sleepy old cow!", "\"A little maid dwelling in Wallington Town,", "\"Is my friend, so I beg to remark:", "\"Do you think she'd be pleased if a book were sent down", "\"Entitled 'The Hunt of the Snark?'\"", "", "", "\"Pack it up in brown paper!\" the old man cried,", "\"And seal it with olive-and-dove.", "\"I command you to do it!\" he added with pride,", "\"Nor forget, my good fellow to send her beside", "\"Easter Greetings, and give her my love.\"" ], "linecount": "13" }, { "title": "A Game of Fives", "author": "Lewis Carroll", "lines": [ "Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One:", "Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.", "", "Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six:", "Sitting down to lessons - no more time for tricks.", "", "Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven:", "Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven!", "", "Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen:", "Each young man that calls, I say \"Now tell me which you MEAN!\"", "", "Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one:", "But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?", "", "Five showy girls - but Thirty is an age", "When girls may be ENGAGING, but they somehow don't ENGAGE.", "", "Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more:", "So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!", "", "", "Five PASSE girls - Their age? Well, never mind!", "We jog along together, like the rest of human kind:", "But the quondam \"careless bachelor\" begins to think he knows", "The answer to that ancient problem \"how the money goes\"!" ], "linecount": "18" }, { "title": "Brother And Sister", "author": "Lewis Carroll", "lines": [ "\"SISTER, sister, go to bed!", "Go and rest your weary head.\"", "Thus the prudent brother said.", "", "\"Do you want a battered hide,", "Or scratches to your face applied?\"", "Thus his sister calm replied.", "", "\"Sister, do not raise my wrath.", "I'd make you into mutton broth", "As easily as kill a moth\"", "", "The sister raised her beaming eye", "And looked on him indignantly", "And sternly answered, \"Only try!\"", "", "Off to the cook he quickly ran.", "\"Dear Cook, please lend a frying-pan", "To me as quickly as you can.\"", "", "And wherefore should I lend it you?\"", "\"The reason, Cook, is plain to view.", "I wish to make an Irish stew.\"", "", "\"What meat is in that stew to go?\"", "\"My sister'll be the contents!\"", "\"Oh\"", "\"You'll lend the pan to me, Cook?\"", "\"No!\"", "", "Moral: Never stew your sister." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "You Are Old, Father William", "author": "Lewis Carroll", "lines": [ "\"You are old, Father william,\" the young man said,", "\"And your hair has become very white;", "And yet you incessantly stand on your head--", "Do you think, at your age, it is right?", "", "\"In my youth,\" Father William replied to his son,", "\"I feared it might injure the brain;", "But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,", "Why, I do it again and again.\"", "", "\"You are old,\" said the youth, \"as I mentioned before,", "And you have grown must uncommonly fat;", "Yet you turned back a somersault in at the door--", "Pray, what is the reason of that?\"", "", "\"In my youth,\" said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,", "\"I kep all my limbs very supple", "By the use of this ointment--one shilling a box--", "Allow me to sell you a couple.\"", "", "\"You are old,\" said the youth, \"and your jaws are too weak", "For anything tougher than suet;", "Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--", "Pray, how did you manage to do it?\"", "", "\"In my youth,\" said his father, \"I took to the law,", "And argued each case with my wife;", "And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,", "Has lasted the rest of my life.\"", "", "\"You are old,\" said the youth, \"one would hardly suppose", "That your eyes was as steady as ever;", "Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--", "What made you so awfully clever?\"", "", "\"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,\"", "Said his father; \"don't give yourself airs!", "Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?", "Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!\"" ], "linecount": "32" }, { "title": "A Sea Dirge", "author": "Lewis Carroll", "lines": [ "There are certain things--as, a spider, a ghost,", " The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three--", "That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most", " Is a thing they call the Sea.", "", "Pour some salt water over the floor--", " Ugly I'm sure you'll allow it to be:", "Suppose it extended a mile or more,", " That's very like the Sea.", "", "Beat a dog till it howls outright--", " Cruel, but all very well for a spree:", "Suppose that he did so day and night,", " That would be like the Sea.", "", "I had a vision of nursery-maids;", " Tens of thousands passed by me--", "All leading children with wooden spades,", " And this was by the Sea.", "", "Who invented those spades of wood?", " Who was it cut them out of the tree?", "None, I think, but an idiot could--", " Or one that loved the Sea.", "", "It is pleasant and dreamy, no doubt, to float", " With \"thoughts as boundless, and souls as free\":", "But, suppose you are very unwell in the boat,", " How do you like the Sea?", "", "There is an insect that people avoid", " (Whence is derived the verb \"to flee\").", "Where have you been by it most annoyed?", " In lodgings by the Sea.", "", "If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,", " A decided hint of salt in your tea,", "And a fishy taste in the very eggs--", " By all means choose the Sea.", "", "And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,", " You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,", "And a chronic state of wet in your feet,", " Then--I recommend the Sea.", "", "For I have friends who dwell by the coast--", " Pleasant friends they are to me!", "It is when I am with them I wonder most", " That anyone likes the Sea.", "", "They take me a walk: though tired and stiff,", " To climb the heights I madly agree;", "And, after a tumble or so from the cliff,", " They kindly suggest the Sea.", "", "I try the rocks, and I think it cool", " That they laugh with such an excess of glee,", "As I heavily slip into every pool", " That skirts the cold cold Sea." ], "linecount": "48" }, { "title": "A Valentine", "author": "Lewis Carroll", "lines": [ "Sent to a friend who had complained that I was glad enough to see", "him when he came, but didn't seem to miss him if he stayed away.", "", "And cannot pleasures, while they last,", "Be actual unless, when past,", "They leave us shuddering and aghast,", "With anguish smarting?", "And cannot friends be firm and fast,", "And yet bear parting?", "", "And must I then, at Friendship's call,", "Calmly resign the little all", "(Trifling, I grant, it is and small)", "I have of gladness,", "And lend my being to the thrall", "Of gloom and sadness?", "", "And think you that I should be dumb,", "And full DOLORUM OMNIUM,", "Excepting when YOU choose to come", "And share my dinner?", "At other times be sour and glum", "And daily thinner?", "", "Must he then only live to weep,", "Who'd prove his friendship true and deep", "By day a lonely shadow creep,", "At night-time languish,", "Oft raising in his broken sleep", "The moan of anguish?", "", "The lover, if for certain days", "His fair one be denied his gaze,", "Sinks not in grief and wild amaze,", "But, wiser wooer,", "He spends the time in writing lays,", "And posts them to her.", "", "And if the verse flow free and fast,", "Till even the poet is aghast,", "A touching Valentine at last", "The post shall carry,", "When thirteen days are gone and past", "Of February.", "", "Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet,", "In desert waste or crowded street,", "Perhaps before this week shall fleet,", "Perhaps to-morrow.", "I trust to find YOUR heart the seat", "Of wasting sorrow." ], "linecount": "44" }, { "title": "Phantasmagoria CANTO VII ( Sad Souvenaunce )", "author": "Lewis Carroll", "lines": [ "\"WHAT'S this?\" I pondered. \"Have I slept?", "Or can I have been drinking?\"", "But soon a gentler feeling crept", "Upon me, and I sat and wept", "An hour or so, like winking.", "", "\"No need for Bones to hurry so!\"", "I sobbed. \"In fact, I doubt", "If it was worth his while to go -", "And who is Tibbs, I'd like to know,", "To make such work about?", "", "\"If Tibbs is anything like me,", "It's POSSIBLE,\" I said,", "\"He won't be over-pleased to be", "Dropped in upon at half-past three,", "After he's snug in bed.", "", "\"And if Bones plagues him anyhow -", "Squeaking and all the rest of it,", "As he was doing here just now -", "I prophesy there'll be a row,", "And Tibbs will have the best of it!\"", "", "Then, as my tears could never bring", "The friendly Phantom back,", "It seemed to me the proper thing", "To mix another glass, and sing", "The following Coronach.", "", "'AND ART THOU GONE, BELOVED GHOST?", "BEST OF FAMILIARS!", "NAY THEN, FAREWELL, MY DUCKLING ROAST,", "FAREWELL, FAREWELL, MY TEA AND TOAST,", "MY MEERSCHAUM AND CIGARS!", "", "THE HUES OF LIFE ARE DULL AND GRAY,", "THE SWEETS OF LIFE INSIPID,", "WHEN thou, MY CHARMER, ART AWAY -", "OLD BRICK, OR RATHER, LET ME SAY,", "OLD PARALLELEPIPED!'", "", "Instead of singing Verse the Third,", "I ceased - abruptly, rather:", "But, after such a splendid word", "I felt that it would be absurd", "To try it any farther.", "", "So with a yawn I went my way", "To seek the welcome downy,", "And slept, and dreamed till break of day", "Of Poltergeist and Fetch and Fay", "And Leprechaun and Brownie!", "", "For year I've not been visited", "By any kind of Sprite;", "Yet still they echo in my head,", "Those parting words, so kindly said,", "\"Old Turnip-top, good-night!\"" ], "linecount": "50" } ]