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Further nonsense verse and prose cover

Further nonsense verse and prose

Chapter 14: THE MOUSE’S TAIL
By Lewis Carroll
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About This Book

A varied collection of short pieces that mixes nonsense verse, limericks, parodies, acrostics, playful correspondence, and brief comic prose. Poems range from brisk, absurd ditties to more measured, mildly melancholic lyrics, while prose items include mock-serious essays on manners, whimsical imaginings, and light mathematical or logical pastiches. The pieces rely on inventive wordplay, paradox, and satire of social convention, shifting between ear-catching rhythms and conversational wit. Arranged as a miscellany, the work emphasizes formal experimentation and a childlike playfulness tempered by occasional gentle reflection.

THE MOUSE’S TAIL

(From “Alice’s Adventures Underground”[22])

We lived beneath the mat
Warm and snug and fat
But one woe, and that
was the cat!
To our joys
a clog. In
our eyes a
fog, On our
hearts a log
Was the dog!
When the
cat’s away,
Then
the mice
will
play,
But, alas!
one day; (So they say)
Came the dog and
cat, Hunting
for a
rat,
Crushed
the mice
all flat,
Each one,
as he sat,
Under-
neath
the mat,
Warm &
snug
& fat.
Think
of
that!

[22] This was the story told on July 4, 1862, to the three Miss Liddells, which was afterwards developed into “Alice in Wonderland.” A facsimile of the story, as written in manuscript for Alice Liddell, was published in 1886. The above poem does not appear in “Alice in Wonderland,” its place being taken by an entirely different “Mouse Tail.”