Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/388

364 death itself only made his face look more boyish—the word is not too strong. "How wonderfully young your brother looks!" were the first words the doctor said, as he returned from the room where Lewis Carroll's body lay, to speak to the mourners below. And so he loved children because their friendship was the true source of his perennial youth and unflagging vigour. This idea is expressed in the following poem—an acrostic, which he wrote for a friend some twenty years ago:— Around my lonely hearth, to-night,
 * Ghostlike the shadows wander:

Now here, now there, a childish sprite, Earthborn and yet as angel bright,
 * Seems near me as I ponder.

Gaily she shouts: the laughing air
 * Echoes her note of gladness—

Or bends herself with earnest care Round fairy-fortress to prepare Grim battlement or turret-stair—
 * In childhood's merry madness!

New raptures still hath youth in store
 * Age may but fondly cherish

Half-faded memories of yore— Up, craven heart! repine no more! Love stretches hands from shore to shore:
 * Love is, and shall not perish!