Page:Carroll - Rhyme and Reason.djvu/140

124 You told me once 'the very wish
 * Partook of the sublime.'
 * Then 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: