Page:Complete Works of Lewis Carroll.djvu/811

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Early Verse
791
LAYS OF SORROW
No. 1
The day was wet, the rain fell souse  Like jars of strawberry jam,[1] aSound was heard in the old henhouse,  A beating of a hammer.Of stalwart form, and visage warm,  Two youths were seen within it,Splitting up an old tree into perches for their poultry  At a hundred strokes[2] a minute.
The work is done, the hen has takenPossession of her nest and eggs.Without a thought of eggs and bacon,[3](Or I am very much mistaken:)   She turns over each shell,   To be sure that all's well,   Looks into the straw    To see there's no flaw,    Goes once round the house,[4]    Half afraid of a mouse,    Then sinks calmly to rest    On the top of her nest,   First doubling up each of her legs.Time rolled away, and so did every shell,  "Small by degrees and beautifully less,"
  1. ↑ I.e. the jam without the jars. Observe the beauty of this rhyme.
  2. ↑ At the rate of a stroke and two-thirds in a second.
  3. ↑ Unless the hen was a poacher, which is unlikely.
  4. ↑ The henhouse.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.