Page:Carroll - Phantasmagoria and other poems (1869).djvu/80



[In these days of imitation, I can claim no sort of merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Any one who knows what verse is, with the slightest ear for rhythm, can throw off a composition in the easy running metre of 'The Song of Hiawatha.' Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no attention, in the following little poem, to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader, to confine his criticism, to its treatment of the subject.]

his shoulder Hiawatha Took the camera of rosewood, Made of sliding, folding rosewood; Neatly put it all together. In its case it lay compactly, Folded into nearly nothing; But he opened out the hinges, Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,