fAHMY 3030 === > LEWIS CAROL 5
Once more in gentle tones she spake.
''^Thought in the mind doth still abide That is by Intellect supplied.
Her voice was very full and rich, And, when at length she asked him Which?
'* It mounted to its highest pitch.
Some loathly vampire's rich repast.
'Twere hard,it answered, themes immense To coop within the narrow fence That rings thy scant intelligence.
She said The More exceeds the Less.
)> ^'A truth of such undoubted weight,He urged, and so extreme in date, It were superfluous to state.
Because the talk was all her own, And he was dull as any drone.
5> v She urged No cheese is made of chalk And ceaseless flowed her dreary talk, Tuned to the footfall of a walk.
Right through the centre of the crown.
866 VERSE Then, with an aspect cold and grim, Regardless of its battered rim.
And she, an avalanche of woe!
878 VERSE THEME WITH VARIATIONS [Why is it that Poetry has never yet been subjected to that process of Dilution which has proved so advantageous to hei sister-art Music?
You must not hastily To such conclusions jump.
882 VERSE Such epithets, Uke pepper.
Shall his fevered eye Through towering nothingness descry The grisly phantom hurry by?
; I A> J i^'' 872 VERSE And hear dumb shrieks that fill the air; See mouths that gape, and eyes that stare And redden in the dusky glare?
Say *Men are Men, and Geese are Geese.
> »> He moaned : he knew not what to say.
?
>?
And yet, so grand were her replies, I could not choose but deem her wise; I did not dare to criticise: 876 VERSE Nor did I leave her, till she went So deep in tangled argument That all my powers of thought were spent.
A little whisper inly slid, Yet truth is truth: you know you did.
She took it up and gave it him.
A while like one in dreams he stood, Then faltered forth his gratitude In words just short of being rude: For it had lost its shape and shine, And it had cost him four-and-nine, And he was going out to dine.
The world is but a Thought,said he: The vast unfathomable sea Is but a Notion—unto me.
And darkly fell her answer dread Upon his unresisting head.
And within that Idea doth hide: ^'And he, that yearns the truth to know Still further inwardly may go.
And find Idea from Notion flow : ^'And thus the chain, that sages sought, Is to a glorious circle wrought.
It needed not her calm reply : She fixed him with a stony eye.
And he could neither fight nor fly.
870 VERSE The Second Voice They walked beside tlie wave-worn beach; Her tongue was very apt to teach.
And now and then he did beseech She would abate her dulcet tone.
Dinner is Dinner: Tea is Tea.
And she, Yea so?
For all their brains were pumped away.
And they had nothing more to say — 874 VERSE Save one, who groaned Three hours are gone!
The old man smiled to see him, To hear his sudden sally; He liked the lad to speak his mind Enthusiastically; And thought There's no hum-drum in him, Nor any shilly-shally.
And would you be a poet Before you've been to school.
A little wink beneath the lid.
And, sickened with excess of dread, Prone to the dust he bent his head, And lay like one three-quarters dead.
And when at Eve the unpitying sun Smiled grimly on the solemn fun, Alack,he sighed, what have I done?
But saddest, darkest was the sight.
Roused into sudden passion, she In tone of cold malignity : To others, yea : but not to thee.
But when she saw him quail and quake, And when he urged For pity's sake!
To glad me with his soft black eye My son comes trotting home from school; Hes had a fight but cant tell why— He always was a little fool!
But, when he came to know me well, He kicked me out, her testy Sire: And when I stained my hair, that Belle Might note the^ change, and thus admire PHANTASMAGORIA 879 And love me, it was sure to dye A muddy green, or staring blue: Whilst one might trace,
PHANTASMAGORIA 867 Say, can thy noble spirit stoop To join the gormandising troop Who find a solace in the soup ?
Canst thou desire or pie or puflf?
She reached a full stop, and was still.
Dead calm succeeded to the fuss, As when the loaded omnibus Has reached the railway terminus : PHANTASMAGORIA 873 When, for the tumult of the street, Is heard the engine's stifled beat.
' Then tell me how!
Don't put me oflE With your 'another time'!
He a bewildered answer gave.
Drowned in the sullen moaning wave, Lost in the echoes of the cave.
PHANTASMAGORIA 875 *'Her speech,he said, hath caused this pain.
Easier I count it to explain The jargon o£ the howhng main, Or, stretched beside some babbUng brook, To con, with inexpressive look.
Thunders were silence to his groan, Bagpipes sweet music to its tone : What?
Ever thus, in dismal round, Shall Pain and Mystery profound Pursue me like a sleepless hound, With crimson-dashed and eager jaws, Me, still in ignorance of the cause.
Therefore, tp test his patience — How much he can endure — Mention no places, names, or dates, And evermore be sure Throughout the poem to be found Consistently obscure.
First fix upon the limit To which it shall extend : Then fill it up with Tadding' (Beg some of any friend) : Your great Sensation-stanza You place towards the end.
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!
A GAME OF FIVES 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.
i 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 meanT Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one : But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?
First learn to be spasmodic — A very simple rule.
For first you write a sentence, And then you chop it small; Then mix the bits, and sort them out Just as they chance to fall : The order of the phrases makes No difference at all.
Next, when you are describing A shape, or sound, or tint; Don't state the matter plainly, But put it in a hint; And learn to look at all things With a sort of mental squint.
For instance, if I wished.
What boots it?
For the world is wide.
868 VERSE Fixing her eyes upon the beach, As though unconscious of his speech, She said Each gives to more than each.
He could not answer yea or nay : He faltered Gifts may pass away.
The man that smokes—that reads The TimesThat goes to Christmas Pantomimes — Is capable of any crimes!
He felt it was his turn to speak, And, with a shamed and crimson cheek, Moaned This is harder than Bezique!
And every now and then she frowned.
He gazed upon the sleeping sea.
The vision passed : the ghosts were fled : He saw once more that woman dread : He heard once more the words she said.
He left her, and he turned aside: He sat and watched the coming tide Across the shores so newly dried.
He marked the ripple on the sand : The even swaying of her hand Was all that he could understand.
He saw in dreams a drawing-room.
Not so,he urged, nor once alone: But there was something in her tone That chilled me to the very bone.
Her style was anything but clear, And most unpleasantly severe; Her epithets were very queer.
PHANTASMAGORIA 869 While, like broad waves of golden grain, Or sunlit hues on cloistered pane.
His colour came and went again.
We jog along together, like the rest of human kind: 88o VERSE But the quondam careless bachelorbegins to think he knows The answer to that ancient problem how the money goes'M POETA FIT, NON NASCITUR How shall I be a poet?
How shall I write in rhyme: You told me once *the very wish Partook o£ the sublime.
And shall he miss Of other thoughts no thought but this, Harmonious dews of sober bliss?
I \ What boots it?
f^ Ah, well!
I hardly thought you So absolute a fool.
And what is a Sensation, Grandfather, tell me, pray?
I think I never heard the word So used before to-day: Be kind enough to mention one ^Exempli gratia' /!
Yet knew not what he meant to say.
If that be so,she straight replied, Each heart with each doth coincide.
Give zest to what you write; And, if you strew them sparely, They whet the appetite: But if you lay them on too thick, You spoil the matter quite!
Last, as to the arrangement: Your reader, you should show him, Must take what information he Can get, and look for no immature disclosure of the drift And purpose of your poem.
Yet wherefore cease?
Let thy scant knowledge find increase.
The whisper left him—like a breeze .
Lost in the depths of leafy trees — Left him by no means at his ease.
And, bodying forth in glassy eyes The vision of a vanished good.
Low peering through the tangled wood.
An unintelligible book.
Low spake the voice within his head.
And will it do, O will it do To take them in a lump — As 'the wild man went his weary way To a strange and lonely pump'?
Nay, nay!
If so, why not?
Of this remark The bearings are profoundly dark.
When the cold grasp of leaden Night Dashed him to earth, and held him tight.
PHANTASMAGORIA 877 Tortured, unaided, and alone.
And wildly tangled evidence.
PHANTASMAGORIA 87I When he, with racked and whirUng brain, Feebly implored her to explain, She simply said it all again.
f^ Why not endure, expecting more?
Rather than that,he groaned aghast, Fd writhe in depths of cavern vast.
PHANTASMAGORIA 88l Then, if you'd be impressive.
Remember what I say, That abstract quahties begin With capitals alway : The True, the Good, the Beautiful — Those are the things that pay!
Proceeded to unfold her own.
Shall Man be Man?
The feathery train of granite Night?
Shall he, grown gray among his peers, Through the thick curtain of his tears Catch glimpses of his earlier years, And hear the sounds he knew of yore, Old shufflings on the sanded floor.
Baffled, she gave a wolfish bark : He, aiming blindly in the dark, With random shaft had pierced the mark.
She felt that her defeat was plain, Yet madly strove with might and main To get the upper hand again.
Wrenched with an agony intense, He spake, neglecting Sound and Sense, And careless of all consequence : Mind—I believe—is Essence—Ent — Abstract—that is—an Accident — Which we—that is to say—I meant — )> When, with quick breath and cheeks all flushed, At
She looked at him, and he was crushed.
He answered her he knew not what: Like shaft from bow at random shot, He spoke, but she regarded not.
She waited not for his reply, But with a downward leaden eye Went on as if he were not by — Sound argument and grave defence.
Sir, Of mutton-pies to tell.
Should I say ^dreams of fleecy flocks Pent in a wheaten cell'?
For Notion hath its source in Thought.
So passed they on with even pace : Yet gradually one might trace A shadow growing on his face.
In words imagined more than said.
Soundless as ghost's intended tread: If thou art duller than before, Why quittedst thou the voice of lore.
Harked back upon her threadbare theme.
Still an attentive ear he lent But could not fathom what she meant: She was not deep, nor eloquent.
Shall freeze the current of his blood.
Still from each fact, with skill uncouth And savage rapture, like a tooth She wrenched some slow reluctant truth.
The thought That I could get away!
Strove with the thought But I must stay.
Her visage scorched him ere she spoke: There are,she said, a kind of folk Who have no horror of a joke.
Such wretches live: they take their share Of common earth and common air : We come across them here and there : We grant them—there is no escape — A sort of semi-human shape Suggestive of the man-like Ape.
His heart stood still, aghast with fear; A wordless voice, nor far nor near, He seemed to hear and not to hear.
Tears kindle not the doubtful spark.
Who shrieked We'll wait no longer, John!
Tell them to set the dinner on!
The tear-drop trickled to his chin : There was a meaning in her grin That made him feel on fire within.
Term it not 'radiance,' said he: 'Tis solid nutriment to me.
In all such theories,said he, One fixed exception there must be.
That is, the Present Company.
Like half a hundredweight of lead.
The Good and Great must ever shun That reckless and abandoned one Who stoops to perpetrate a pun.
He wondered at the waters clear, The breeze that whispered in his ear, The billows heaving far and near, And why he had so long preferred To hang upon her every word : In truth,he said, it was absurd.
The Third Voice Not long this transport held its place : Within a little moment's space Quick tears were raining down his face.
The meadows breathing amber light.
The darkness toppling from the height.
The Diluter gives us first a few^ notes oi some well-know^n Air, then a dozen bars of his ow^n, then a few more notes of the Air, and so on alternately: thus saving the listener, if not from all risk of recognising the melody at all, at least from the too
The procesj is termed settingby Composers, and any one, that has ever experienced the emotion of being unexpectedly set down in a heap of mortar, will recognise the truthfulness of this happy phrase.
Unknowing what I broke of laws?
The whisper to his ear did seem Like echoed flow of silent stream, Or shadow of forgotten dream, The whisper trembling in the wind: Her fate with thine was intertwined,So spake it in his inner mind : Each orbed on each a baleful star: Each proved th
Why, yes,the old man said: that phrase Would answer very well.
Then fourthly, there are epithets That suit with any word — As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce With fish, or flesh, or bird — Of these, 'wild,' 'lonely,' 'weary,' 'strange,' Are much to be preferred.
When, at high Noon, the blazing sky Scorched in his head each haggard eye.
Then keenest rose his weary cry.
While she dissected, word by word, His speech, half-guessed at and half heard, As might a cat a little bird.
Then, having wholly overthrown His views, and stripped them to the bone.
And joyed in its tranquillity, And in that silence dead, but she To muse a little space did seem.
Then, like the echo of a dream.
To swallow wines all foam and froth!
To simper at a table-cloth!
Where thirteen wretches sat in gloom.
Waiting—he thought he knew for whom : He saw them drooping here and there, Each feebly huddled on a chair, In attitudes of blank despair : Oysters were not more mute than they.
^F ^ff *^ tF tP ^ Five passe girls—Their age?
Well, never mind!
Till, like a silent water-mill.
When summer suns have dried the rill.
Once more he weltered in despair, With hands, through denser-matted hair, More tightly clenched than then they were.
When, bathed in Dawn of living red, Majestic frowned the mountain head, Tell me my fault,was all he said.
The velvet tread of porters' feet.
With glance that ever sought the ground, She moved her lips without a sound.
He laughed aloud for very glee: There came a breeze from off the sea : It passed athwart the glooming flat — It fanned his forehead as he sat — It lightly bore away his hat, All to the feet of one who stood Like maid enchanted in a wood, Frowning as darkl
With huge umbrella, lank and brown, Unerringly she pinned it down.
Old knuckles tapping at the door?
Yet still before him as he flies One pallid form shall ever rise.
Thy well-bred manners were enough, Without such gross material stuff.
Yet well-bred men/' he faintly said, Are not unwilling to be fed : Nor are they well without the bread.
Pitying his obvious distress.
Yet with a tinge o£ bitterness.
But when she asked him Wherefore so.
^He felt his very whiskers glow, And frankly owned I do not know.
Strange questions raised on Why?
and Whence?
To dine!
she shrieked in dragon-wrath.
To dine!
she sneered in acid tone, To bend thy being to a bone Clothed in a radiance not its own!
For truly, just as the genuine Epicure lingers lovingly over a morsel of supreme Venison—whose every fibre seems to murmur Excelsior!
—yet swallows, ere returning to the toothsome dainty, great mouthfuls of oatmeal-porridge and winkles: and just as the perfect Connoisseur in Claret permits himself but one delicate sip, and then tosses off a pint 01 more of boarding-school beer: so also