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Lewis Carroll - Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur
Work rating: Medium

"How shall I be a poet?
   How shall I write in rhyme?
   You told me once `the very wish
   Partook of the sublime.`
   The tell me how! Don`t put me off
   With your `another time`!"
   The old man smiled to see him,
   To hear his sudden sally;
   He liked the lad to speak his mind
  Enthusiastically;
  And thought "There`s no hum-drum in him,
  Nor any shilly-shally."

  "And would you be a poet
  Before you`ve been to school?
  Ah, well! I hardly thought you 
  So absolute a fool.
  First learn to be spasmodic —
  A very simple rule.

  "For first you write a sentence,
  And then you chop it small;
  Then mix the bits, and sort them out
  Just as they chance to fall:
  The order of the phrases makes
  No difference at all.

  `Then, if you`d be impressive,
  Remember what I say,
  That abstract qualities begin
  With capitals alway:
  The True, the Good, the Beautiful —
  Those are the things that pay!

  "Next, when we are describing
  A shape, or sound, or tint;
  Don`t state the matter plainly,
  But put it in a hint;
  And learn to look at all things
  With a sort of mental squint."

  "For instance, if I wished, Sir,
  Of mutton-pies to tell,
  Should I say `dreams of fleecy flocks
  Pent in a wheaten cell`?"
  "Why, yes," the old man said: "that phrase
  Would answer very well.

  "Then fourthly, there are epithets
  That suit with any word —
  As well as Harvey`s Reading Sauce
  With fish, or flesh, or bird —
  Of these, `wild,` `lonely,` `weary,` `strange,`
  Are much to be preferred."

  "And will it do, O will it do
  To take them in a lump —
  As `the wild man went his weary way
  To a strange and lonely pump`?"
  "Nay, nay! You must not hastily
  To such conclusions jump.

  "Such epithets, like pepper,
  Give zest to what you write;
  And, if you strew them sparely,
  They whet the appetite:
  But if you lay them on too thick,
  You spoil the matter quite!

  "Last, as to the arrangement:
  Your reader, you should show him,
  Must take what information he
  Can get, and look for no im­
  mature disclosure of the drift
  And purpose of your poem.

  "Therefore to test his patience —
  How much he can endure —
  Mention no places, names, or dates,
  And evermore be sure
  Throughout the poem to be found
  Consistently obscure.

  "First fix upon the limit
  To which it shall extend:
  Then fill it up with `Padding`
  (Beg some of any friend)
  Your great SENSATION-STANZA
  You place towards the end."

  "And what is a Sensation,
  Grandfather, tell me, pray?
  I think I never heard the word
  So used before to-day:
  Be kind enough to mention one
  `Exempli gratiâ`"

  And the old man, looking sadly
  Across the garden-lawn,
  Where here and there a dew-drop
  Yet glittered in the dawn,
  Said "Go to the Adelphi,
  And see the `Colleen Bawn.`

  "The word is due to Boucicault —
  The theory is his,
  Where Life becomes a Spasm,
  And History a Whiz:
  If that is not Sensation,
  I don`t know what it is,

  "Now try your hand, ere Fancy
  Have lost its present glow —"
  "And then," his grandson added,
  "We`ll publish it, you know:
  Green cloth — gold-lettered at the back —
  In duodecimo!"


  Then proudly smiled that old man
  To see the eager lad
  Rush madly for his pen and ink
  And for his blotting-pad —
  But, when he thought of publishing,
  His face grew stern and sad.
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