But in one thing it excels: the verses are every bit as charming as either the Wonderland or Looking-Glass verses, with all the old-time delicious nonsense. Take, for instance—
THE GARDENER’S SONG.
He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp;
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage-Stamp.
“You’d best be getting home,” he said:
“The nights are very damp!”
He thought he saw an Argument
That proved he was the Pope;
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar-of-Mottled-Soap.
“A fact so dread,” he faintly said,
“Extinguishes all hope!”
He thought he saw a Banker’s-Clerk
Descending from the Bus;
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus.
“If this should stay to dine,” he said,
“There won’t be much for us!”
He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece;
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister’s-Husband’s-Niece.
“Unless you leave this house,” he said,
“I’ll send for the police!”
He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed;
He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a head.
“Poor thing!” he said, “poor, silly thing!
It’s waiting to be fed!”
He thought he saw a Garden-Door
That opened with a key;
He looked again, and found it was
A Double-Rule-of-Three.
“And all its mystery,” he said,
“Is clear as day to me!”
He thought he saw a Kangaroo
That worked a coffee-mill;
He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-Pill.
“Were I to swallow this,” he said,
“I should be very ill!”
He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek;
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle-of-Next-Week.
“The one thing I regret,” he said,
“Is that it cannot speak!”
The gardener was a very remarkable person, whose time was spent raking the beds and making up extra verses to this beautiful poem; the last one ran:
He thought he saw an Elephant
That practiced on a fife;
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
“At length I realize,” he said,
“The bitterness of Life!”
“What a wild being it was who sung these wild words! A gardener he seemed to be, yet surely a mad one by the way he brandished his rake, madder by the way he broke ever and anon into a frantic jig, maddest of all by the shriek in which he brought out the last words of the stanza.
“It was so far a description of himself that he had the feet of an elephant, but the rest of him was skin and bone; and the wisps of loose straw that bristled all about him suggested that he had been originally stuffed with it, and that nearly all the stuffing had come out.”
In “Sylvie and Bruno,” probably to a greater extent than in all his other books, are some clever caricatures of well-known people. The two professors are certainly taken from life, probably from Oxford. One is called “The Professor” and one “The Other Professor.” The Baron, the Vice-Warden and my Lady were all too real, and as for the fat Prince Uggug, well, any kind feeling Lewis Carroll may have had toward boys when he fashioned Bruno had entirely vanished when Prince Uggug came upon the scene. All the ugly, rough, ill-mannered, bad boys Lewis Carroll had ever heard of were rolled into this wretched, fat, pig of a prince; but the story of this prince proved fascinating to the real little royalties to whom he told it during one Christmas week at Lord Salisbury’s. Most likely he selected this story with an object, in order to show how necessary it was that those of royal blood should behave like true princes and princesses if they would be truly loved. Our good “don” was fond of pointing a moral now and then. Uggug, with all his badness, somehow appeals to the human child, far more than Bruno, with his baby talk and his old-man wisdom and his odd little “fay” ways. Sylvie was much more natural. Bruno, however, was a sweet little songster; it needed no urging to set him to music, and he always sang quite plainly when he had real rhymes to tackle. One of his favorites was called:
THE BADGERS AND THE HERRINGS.
There be three Badgers on a mossy stone,
Beside a dark and covered way.
Each dreams himself a monarch on his throne,
And so they stay and stay—
Though their old Father languishes alone,
They stay, and stay, and stay.
There be three Herrings loitering around,
Longing to share that mossy seat.
Each Herring tries to sing what she has found
That makes life seem so sweet
Thus, with a grating and uncertain sound,
They bleat, and bleat, and bleat.
The Mother-Herring, on the salt sea-wave,
Sought vainly for her absent ones;
The Father-Badger, writhing in a cave,
Shrieked out, “Return, my sons!
You shall have buns,” he shrieked, “if you’ll behave!
Yea buns, and buns, and buns!”
“I fear,” said she, “your sons have gone astray.
My daughters left me while I slept.”
“Yes’m,” the Badger said, “it’s as you say.
They should be better kept.”
Thus the poor parents talked the time away,
And wept, and wept, and wept.
But the thoughtless young ones, who had wandered from home, are having a good time, a rollicking good time, for the Herrings sing:
Oh, dear, beyond our dearest dreams,
Fairer than all that fairest seems!
To feast the rosy hours away,
To revel in a roundelay!
How blest would be
A life so free—
Ipwergis pudding to consume
And drink the subtle Azzigoom!
And if in other days and hours,
’Mid other fluffs and other flowers,
The choice were given me how to dine—
“Name what thou wilt: it shall be thine!”
Oh, then I see
The life for me—
Ipwergis pudding to consume
And drink the subtle Azzigoom!
The Badgers did not care to talk to Fish;
They did not dote on Herrings’ songs;
They never had experienced the dish
To which that name belongs.
“And, oh, to pinch their tails” (this was their wish)
“With tongs, yea, tongs, and tongs!”
“And are not these the Fish,” the eldest sighed,
“Whose mother dwells beneath the foam?”
“They are the Fish!” the second one replied,
“And they have left their home!”
“Oh, wicked Fish,” the youngest Badger cried,
“To roam, yea, roam, and roam!”
Gently the Badgers trotted to the shore—
The sandy shore that fringed the bay.
Each in his mouth a living Herring bore—
Those aged ones waxed gay.
Clear rang their voices through the ocean’s roar.
“Hooray, hooray, hooray!’”