The (almost really) Complete Works of Lewis Carroll

Of man in stature small yet deeds sublime,
Who, even from his tender toothless years,
Boldly essayed to swallow and digest
Whole tomes of massive learning, ostrich-like,
Sing, classic Muse! and speed my daring quill,
Whiles that in language all too poor and weak
For such high themes, I tremblingly recount
To listening world’s an hero’s history.

Nursed in a cradle framed of Doric reeds,
In a fly-leaf of Scapula enwrapped,
Fed on black-broth (oh classic privilege!)
Seasoned with Attic salt, the infant throve.
Small taste had he for toys of infancy;
The coral and the bells he put aside;
But in his cradle would soliloquise,
And hold high commune with his inner man
In Greek Iambics, aptly modified.
A smile sardonic wore he in his joy;
And in his sorrow shed no mawkish tear;
ώ̓μοι πεπληγμαι was his only cry,
And with much “smiting of the breast,” he wrestled,
And would have rent his hair, but that he had none.

A merry boy the infant hath become;
He leaps and dances in the light of life,
With his shrill laughter rings the ancient house,
The stairs reecho to his tread, as light
As when beneath the solemn oaks at eve
The tricksy fairies in their revelry
Wheel in wild dance, nor mark the dewy grass.
Yet even now upon that chiselled brow,
Lately so bright and fair, a Shadow dwells;
It is the Ghost of Latin yet unlearnt,
And dark forebodings of the Greek-to-come!
What can his grief be? he has all he loves,
A Scapula, an “Ainsworth’s Dictionary,”
And “all the Greek, and all the Latin authors—”
Then wherefore, moody boy, that crystal tear?
“It is the thought,” methinks I hear him moan,
Clasping with quivering hands his aching brow,
“That certain Plays Euripides hath written
Are lost, are lost, and I shall never see them!”

“Homer may come, and Homer may go,
“And be shifted, like lumber, from shelf to shelf,
“But I will read no Greek, no Greek,
“Until the Lost Dramas I’ve found for myself!”

Thus, all unconscious, rhymed his agony,
Adapting to the anguish of the hour
A fragment from our Poet Laureate.

Sing ye, who list, the deeds of ancient might,
In tournament, or deadlier battle-fray:
Sing ye the havoc and the din of war,
A nobler and a gentler theme be mine!
Through twice nine years eventless passed his life,
Save that each day some large addition brought
To that vast mass of learning stored within.
But now bright Fancy thrilled his raptured mind,
And poised her wings for flight, yet ere she rose,
With ponderous Sense he loaded her to Earth;
And the full flood of Poesy within
He primly tortured into wooden verse:

“Glory of the ancient time,
Classic fount of other days!
How shall I, in modern rhyme
Fitly sing thy praise?
It chanced, the other day,
A tattered beggar asked an alms of me:
“Bestow a trifle, sir, in charity!”
I turned and said
“Good man,
I have but sixpence in my purse
Yet rather than
In hunger you should pine,
And so your misery grow worse,
It shall be thine,
If you’ll be only good enough to say
That, in
Latin.”
Was this encouragement to classic lore?
Say rather, more!
So may my course for ever smoothly run,
And onward swell
In that smooth channel where it hath begun:
Still climbing, climbing up the classic heights
Where Fame doth dwell
And still
I will
From month to month, from week to week,
Devote my drowsy days and wakeful nights
To Greek.”
Such were the fancies of his lighter mood—
His lighter mood, which very seldom came:
But now my Muse, approaching higher themes,
Shrinks from the task in trembling, for the field,
Green & smooth-shaven, spreads before her sight;
The wickets pitched, the players ranged around;
And he, the hero, in his glory there;
A sight to dream of, not to write about!
Then fare thee well, greatest of little men,
In Greek, in Latin, in the cricket-field:
Great as a bowler, greater as a bat,
But as a “short slip” greater yet than that!