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Lady Clara Vere de Vere
Was eight years old, she said:
Every ringlet, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden thread.
She took her little porringer:
Of me she shall not win renown:
For the baseness of its nature shall have strength to drag her
down.
"Sisters and brothers, little Maid?
There stands the Inspector at thy door:
Like a dog, he hunts for boys who know not two and two are four."
"Kind words are more than coronets,"
She said, and wondering looked at me:
"It is the dead unhappy night, and I must hurry home to tea."
Lewis Carroll
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Tuesday, December 31, 2002 |
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Read poems about / on: dog, strength, nature, home, night, hunting, brother, sister, running
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Comments about this poem (Echoes
by
Lewis Carroll
) |
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Carlos Echeverria (2/15/2012 11:10:00 AM)
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We're so protective of our children these days...could anyone get away with a poem like this today?
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Manonton Dalan (2/15/2012 3:42:00 AM)
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maybe he's picking words randomly
making it to rhyme while rocking his
chair. i like the way he said was eight
years old now most of us are thinking
what could a eight years old could do?
how many eight years old out for the night
and hurry home for tea? hehehehe
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Silvia Lopez (2/15/2011 2:06:00 PM)
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wow confusing..............
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Jimmy Wrangler (2/15/2010 5:54:00 PM)
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Maybe if you had lived in his time, most of this would fall into place. However, it's all Greek to me.
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Alek Lenth (2/15/2010 12:15:00 PM)
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I read this poem as an almost Lolita-esque temptation parable.
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Terence George Craddock (2/15/2010 6:38:00 AM)
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What would you expect from a man who writes under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, because he was an Anglican deacon, mathematician, logician, photographer and English author? Maybe you need to consider the touch of the Irish in his blood to understand him? Or remember that this is the man who wrote, 'Jabberwocky', a hidden Jacobite satire? And Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Carroll clearly delights in word play, logic, and fantasy, and his genre of literary nonsense is obviously intended to entertain. Like Edgar Alan Poe the concept of the poem read aloud with the interaction of the spoken word is important to Carroll, who clearly intends to entertain with this poem.
The title Echoes hints perhaps at childhood memories and the poem contains elements of the rhyme of children’s nursery rhymes. Other echoes imbedded are, the titled Lady Clara Vere de Vere, imitating the commanding manner of her elders in her class position within society, a typical game an eight year old, would play. The description of her, ‘Every ringlet, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden thread’ affirms her social position, reads like fairy tale and reminds of the tale of Rumpelstiltskin. Carroll is spinning a poetic tale instead of straw into gold. The dwarf Rumpelstiltskin who spun gold, revealed his name in a song; of the many translations of this song, the 1886 translation by Lucy Crane is intriguing, because the capitals of her name are echoed in Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s pseudonym, Lewis Carroll.
‘She took her little porringer: ’ reminds of Little Jack Horner and his thumb, porringer playing on the double meaning of finger and small bowl. The line ‘For the baseness of its nature shall have strength to drag her down’ reinforces this reading and reminds us that Lady Clara is only a little girl, with apparently bad eating habits.
‘There stands the Inspector at thy door: ’ is the moral and warning that children must study lessons. It reminds of Wee Willie Winkie checking upon children at night. Again the echo of the nursery rhyme Rumpelstiltskin because Rumpelstilzchen in the original German means literally ‘little rumble stilt’; the rumpelstilt or rumpelstilz was a type of goblin, that makes noises by rattling posts and rapping on planks, similar to rumpelgeist rattle ghost or polterghost. Like Wee Willie Winkie tapping upon doors at night, Carroll is building suspense in children, expecting the Inspector to tap at the door at any moment. Is ‘more than coronets’ a reference to Jacobite songs in which Willie Winkie referred King William III of England? Carroll employs such a rich usage of puns and instructs the moral importance of kindness definitively, stating ‘Kind words are more than coronets’, meaning kindness is greater than a coronet; which is a small crown, usually worn by a prince or a peer and not a reigning monarch. Does ‘It is the dead unhappy night’ warn of polterghosts at play? Carroll is definitely having fun playing with us his audience in this poem, both adults and children.
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Indira Renganathan (2/15/2010 4:02:00 AM)
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I'm sorry...for me the poem is flickering like a tube-light...difficult for me to comprehend the meaning
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JOSEPH POEWHIT (2/15/2010 2:51:00 AM)
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Strange poem with much deph. Sort of speaks of higher authority and advising youth to beware of baseness.The inspector at the door, reaches mortal man, to GOD in heaven, watching the earth.
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Nina Moyal (2/15/2010 2:29:00 AM)
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Lewis Carrol has always had amusing poems...
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Ramesh T A (2/15/2010 12:56:00 AM)
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A sort of confusing poem by Lewis Carroll! It may be suitable for the kids to decipher out what it is!
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