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Further nonsense verse and prose

Chapter 16: ACROSTICS
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.

ACROSTICS

Second only to Lewis Carroll’s stories in the delight they afforded his young friends were his acrostics, in the composition of which he showed a remarkable talent. There were few of his child favourites whose names he did not embody in verses of this kind; some, as in the case of Isa Bowman in “Sylvie and Bruno,” and Gertrude Chataway in “The Hunting of the Snark,” he recorded for posterity in acrostical dedications in his books, but most of these rhymes were composed merely for the amusement of the children concerned, with no thought of publication.

One of the best he wrote across the fly-leaf of a copy of “The Hunting of the Snark,” which he sent to Miss Adelaide Paine in 1876. It runs thus:

“A re you deaf, Father William?” the young man said.
“D id you hear what I told you just now?
“E xcuse me for shouting! Don’t waggle your head
“L ike a blundering, sleepy old cow!
“A little maid dwelling in Wallington Town,
“I s my friend, so I beg to remark:
“D o you think she’d be pleased if a book were sent down
“E ntitled ‘The Hunt of the Snark’?”
“P ack it up in brown paper!” the old man cried,
“A nd seal it with olive-and-dove.
“I command you to do it!” he added with pride,
“N or forget, my good fellow, to send her beside
“E aster Greetings, and give her my love.”

Very few of Mr. Carroll’s acrostics were in this nonsensical strain, however, the vast majority being either serious or quaintly complimentary, as in this example on the name of Miss Sarah Sinclair (1878):

Love among the Roses

S eek ye Love, ye fairy-sprites?
A nd where reddest roses grow,
R osy fancies he invites,
A nd in roses he delights,
H ave ye found him? “No!”
S eek again, and find the boy
I n Childhood’s heart, so pure and clear.
N ow the fairies leap for joy,
C rying, “Love is here!”
L ove has found his proper nest;
A nd we guard him while he dozes
I n a dream of peace and rest
R osier than roses.