Lewis Carroll: Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur

Lewis Carroll

(1832-1898)

 

Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur

 

“How shall I be a poet?

How shall I write in rhyme?

You told me once `the very wish

Partook of the sublime.’

The tell me how! Don’t put me off

With your `another time’!”

The old man smiled to see him,

To hear his sudden sally;

He liked the lad to speak his mind

Enthusiastically;

And thought “There’s no hum-drum in him,

Nor any shilly-shally.”

 

“And would you be a poet

Before you’ve been to school?

Ah, well! I hardly thought you

So absolute a fool.

First learn to be spasmodic —

A very simple rule.

 

“For first you write a sentence,

And then you chop it small;

Then mix the bits, and sort them out

Just as they chance to fall:

The order of the phrases makes

No difference at all.

 

`Then, if you’d be impressive,

Remember what I say,

That abstract qualities begin

With capitals alway:

The True, the Good, the Beautiful —

Those are the things that pay!

 

“Next, when we are describing

A shape, or sound, or tint;

Don’t state the matter plainly,

But put it in a hint;

And learn to look at all things

With a sort of mental squint.”

 

“For instance, if I wished, Sir,

Of mutton-pies to tell,

Should I say `dreams of fleecy flocks

Pent in a wheaten cell’?”

“Why, yes,” the old man said: “that phrase

Would answer very well.

 

“Then fourthly, there are epithets

That suit with any word —

As well as Harvey’s Reading Sauce

With fish, or flesh, or bird —

Of these, `wild,’ `lonely,’ `weary,’ `strange,’

Are much to be preferred.”

 

“And will it do, O will it do

To take them in a lump —

As `the wild man went his weary way

To a strange and lonely pump’?”

“Nay, nay! You must not hastily

To such conclusions jump.

 

“Such epithets, like pepper,

Give zest to what you write;

And, if you strew them sparely,

They whet the appetite:

But if you lay them on too thick,

You spoil the matter quite!

 

“Last, as to the arrangement:

Your reader, you should show him,

Must take what information he

Can get, and look for no im­

mature disclosure of the drift

And purpose of your poem.

 

“Therefore to test his patience —

How much he can endure —

Mention no places, names, or dates,

And evermore be sure

Throughout the poem to be found

Consistently obscure.

 

“First fix upon the limit

To which it shall extend:

Then fill it up with `Padding’

(Beg some of any friend)

Your great SENSATION-STANZA

You place towards the end.”

 

“And what is a Sensation,

Grandfather, tell me, pray?

I think I never heard the word

So used before to-day:

Be kind enough to mention one

`Exempli gratiâ’”

 

And the old man, looking sadly

Across the garden-lawn,

Where here and there a dew-drop

Yet glittered in the dawn,

Said “Go to the Adelphi,

And see the `Colleen Bawn.’

 

“The word is due to Boucicault —

The theory is his,

Where Life becomes a Spasm,

And History a Whiz:

If that is not Sensation,

I don’t know what it is,

 

“Now try your hand, ere Fancy

Have lost its present glow —”

“And then,” his grandson added,

“We’ll publish it, you know:

Green cloth — gold-lettered at the back —

In duodecimo!”

 

Then proudly smiled that old man

To see the eager lad

Rush madly for his pen and ink

And for his blotting-pad —

But, when he thought of publishing,

His face grew stern and sad.

 

Lewis Carroll poetry

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