THE WHITE KNIGHT'S TALE
From "Through the Looking-Glass"

"I'll tell thee everything I can :
---There's little to relate.
I saw an aged, aged man,
---A-sitting on a gate.
'Who are you, aged man ?' I said.
---'And how is it you live ?'
And his answer trickled through my head,
---Like water through a sieve.

"He said, 'I look for butterflies
---That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
---And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,' he said,
---'Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread—
---A trifle, if you please.

"But I was thinking of a plan
---To dye one's whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
---That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
---To what the old man said,
I cried, 'Come, tell me how you live!'
---And thumped him on the head.

"He said, 'I hunt for haddocks' eyes
---Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
---In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
---Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny,
---And that will purchase nine.'

"I heard him then, for I had just
---Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
---By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
---The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
---Might drink my noble health.

"And now, if e'er by chance I put
---My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
---Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
---A very heavy weight,
I weep for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know--

Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo-
That summer evening long ago,
---A-sitting on a gate."

------------------------LEWIS CARROLL