Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Edition

I’m not sure what edition this is from. The poetry in the later chapters is different from the poetry in my version. But since I liked it better, I left it. The most notable difference is I passed by his garden, which, in my version (The Dolphin Master), goes simply:

  • “I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
  • How the owl and the oyster were sharing a pie—”

Whereas this one is quite longer, and much more gruesome. (See The Lobster Quadrille.)

The Introduction

    • All in the golden afternoon
    • Full leisurely we glide;
    • For both our oars, with little skill,
    • By little arms are plied,
    • While little hands make vain pretence
    • Our wanderings to guide.
    • Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour
    • Beneath such dreamy weather,
    • To beg a tale of breath too weak
    • To stir the tiniest feather!
    • Yet what can one poor voice avail
    • Against three tongues together?
    • Imperious Prima flashes forth
    • Her edict to begin it
    • In gentler tone Secunda hopes
    • “There will be nonsense in it!”
    • While Tertia interrupts the tale
    • Not more than once a minute.
    • Anon, to sudden silence won,
    • In fancy they pursue
    • The dream-child moving through a land
    • Of wonders wild and new,
    • In friendly chat with bird or beast
    • And half believe it true.
    • And ever, as the story drained
    • And faintly strove that weary one
    • The rest next time—It is next time!
    • The happy voices cry.
    • Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
    • Thus slowly, one by one,
    • Its quaint events were hammered out—
    • And now the tale is done,
    • And home we steer, a merry crew,
    • Beneath the setting sun.
    • Alice! a childish story take,
    • And with a gentle hand
    • Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined
    • In Memory’s mystic band,
    • Like pilgrim’s wither’d wreath of flowers
    • Pluck’d in a far-off land.