“That doesn’t help us unless we know how the swallow came,” observed the Cat. “If he went as the swallow usually travels he would have won the Deutsch Prize.”
“ ...homeward draw
Now it hath winged its way to winters green.”
“There seems to have been some urgent reason for avoiding the swallow,” continued Alice. “Then all sorts of things happened to the Almanac:
Twice a hundred dawns, a hundred noons, a hundred eves.
“You see there were two dawns to every noon and evening—it must have been dreadfully confusing.”
“It would be at first, of course,” agreed the Cat.
“I think it must have been that extra dawn that
Never swallow or wandering sea-bird saw
or else it was the Flag.”
“What flag?”