Round fairy-fortress to prepare
Grim battlement or turret-stair—
In childhood's merry madness!
New raptures still hath youth in store:
Age may but fondly cherish
Half-faded memories of yore—
Up, craven heart! repine no more!
Love stretches hands from shore to shore:
Love is, and shall not perish!
His first child-friend, so far as I know, was Miss Alice Liddell, the little companion whose innocent talk was one of the chief pleasures of his early life at Oxford, and to whom he told the tale that was to make him famous. In December, 1885, Miss M.E. Manners presented him with a little volume, of which she was the authoress, "Aunt Agatha Ann and Other Verses," and which contained a poem (which I quoted in Chapter VI.), about "Alice." Writing to acknowledge this gift, Lewis Carroll said:—