The Poetry of R.E. Slater: Lewis Carroll - A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Lewis Carroll - A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

A British family on a outing on a punt

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July --

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear --

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream --
Lingering in the golden dream --
Life, what is it but a dream?

Lewis Carroll

*Lewis' recited his early tales of Alice in Wonderland to his children as they punted down the pleasant streams near home working each rhyme and storyline out in their incredulous ears. In this poem the first letter of each line spell out "Alice Pleasance Liddell," the name of the little girl who inspired Lewis Carroll to write "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There." The poem starts by describing the author in a boat with Alice and her two sisters, telling them the story that he would later revise for publication. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Liddell