Friday 27 January 2012

BIRTHDAY FANCIES

Today is the 180th anniversary of the birth of Lewis Carroll on 27 January 1832.

To mark the occasion, here is one of his less-well-known nonsense poems with another of those rediscovered drawings made by my much-younger self...

MY FANCY

I painted her a gushing thing,
With years about a score;
I little thought to find they were
A least a dozen more;
My fancy gave her eyes of blue,
A curly auburn head:
I came to find the blue a green,
The auburn turned to red.

She boxed my ears this morning,
They tingled very much;
I own that I could wish her
A somewhat lighter touch;
And if you ask me how
Her charms might be improved,
I would not have them added to,
But just a few removed!


She has the bear's ethereal grace,
The bland hyaena's laugh,
The footstep of the elephant,
The neck of a giraffe;
I love her still, believe me,
Though my heart its passion hides;
"She's all my fancy painted her,"
But oh! how much besides!

Like so many of Lewis Carroll's verses, this is a parody of a popular poem of its day, now pretty much forgotten. The parodied poem here was 'Alice Gray' by William Mee:

She's all my fancy painted her,
She's lovely, she's divine,
But her heart it is another's,
She never can be mine;
Yet lov'd I as man never lov'd,
A love without decay,
Oh! my heart, my heart is breaking
For the love of Alice Gray!

Her dark brown hair is braided
O'er a brow of spotless white;
Her soft blue eye now languishes,
Now flashes with delight;
Her hair is braided not for me,
The eye is turned away;
Yet my heart, my heart is breaking
For the love of Alice Gray.

I've sunk beneath the summer's sun,
And trembled in the blast;
But my pilgrimage is nearly done,
The weary conflict's past;
And when the green sod wraps my grave,
Oh, his heart, his heart is broken
For the love of Alice Gray.

2 comments:

WendyLady@GoodBooks said...

Love this (and all your informative posts). I nominated you for a bit of fun: the LIEBSTER BLOG AWARD - you inspire many. Thanks, Brian!
http://goodbooksforyoungsouls.blogspot.com/2012/01/passing-along-liebster-love.html

Alexandre Augusto Ferreira said...

GREAT BLOG!!!!