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A-Sitting On A Gate
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Alice In Wonderland
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I'll tell thee everything I can;
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There's little to relate.
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I saw an aged aged man,
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A-sitting on agate.
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'Who are you, aged man?' I said.
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'And how is it you live?'
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And his answer trickled through my head
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Like water through a sieve.
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He said, 'I look for butterflies
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That sleep among the wheat:
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I make them into mutton-pies,
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And sell them in the street.
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I sell them unto men' he said,
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'Who sail on stormy seas;
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And that's the way I get my bread-
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A trifle, if you please.'
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But I was thinking of a plan
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To dye one's whiskers green,
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And always use so large a fan
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That they could not be seen.
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So, having no reply to give
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To what the old man said,
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I cried, 'Come, tell me how you live!'
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And thumped him on the head.
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His accents mild took up the tale:
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He said, 'I go my ways,
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And when I find a mountain-rill,
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I set it in a blaze;
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And thence they make a stuff they call
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Rowland's Macassar Oil-
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Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
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They give me for my toil.'
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But I was thinking of a way
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To feed oneself on batter,
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And so go on from day to day
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Getting a little fatter.
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I shook him well from side to side,
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Until his face was blue:
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'Come, tell me how you live,' I cried,
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'And what it is you do!'
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He said: 'I hunt for haddocks' eyes
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Among the heather bright,
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And work them into waistcoat-buttons
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In the silent night.
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And these I do not sell for gold
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Or coin of silvery shine,
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But for a copper halfpenny,
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And that will purchase nine.
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I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
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Or set limed twigs for crabs;
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I sometimes search the grassy knolls
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For wheels of Hansome-cabs.
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And that's the way' (he gave a wink)
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'By which I get my wealth-
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And very gladly will I drink
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Your Honour's noble health.'
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I heard him then, for I had just
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Completed my design
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To keep the Menai bridge from rust
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By boiling it in wine.
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I thanked him much for telling me
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The way he got his wealth,
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But chiefly for his wish that he
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Might drink my noble health.
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And now, if e'er by chance I put
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My fingers into glue,
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Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
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Into a left-hand shoe,
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Or if I drop upon my toe
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A very heavy weight,
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I weep, for it reminds me so
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Of that old man I used to know-
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Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
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Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
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Whose face was very like a crow,
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With eyes like cinders, all aglow,
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Who seemed distracted with his woe,
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Who rocked his body to and fro,
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And muttered mumblingly and low,
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As if his mouth were full of dough,
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Who snorted like a buffalo-
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That summer evening long ago
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A-sitting on a gate.
All in the Golden Afternoon - Alice in W...
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