Lewis Carroll

PHANTASMAGORIA AND OTHER POEMS
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CANTO IV - Hys Nouryture

 “Oh, when I was a little Ghost,
 A merry time had we!
 Each seated on his favourite post,
 We chumped and chawed the buttered toast
 They gave us for our tea.”
 
 “That story is in print!” I cried.
 “Don’t say it’s not, because
 It’s known as well as Bradshaw’s Guide!”
 (The Ghost uneasily replied
 He hardly thought it was).
 
 “It’s not in Nursery Rhymes?  And yet
 I almost think it is -
 ‘Three little Ghosteses’ were set
 ‘On posteses,’ you know, and ate
 Their ‘buttered toasteses.’
 
 “I have the book; so if you doubt it - ”
 I turned to search the shelf.
 “Don’t stir!” he cried.  “We’ll do
 without it:
 I now remember all about it;
 I wrote the thing myself.
 
 “It came out in a ‘Monthly,’ or
 At least my agent said it did:
 Some literary swell, who saw
 It, thought it seemed adapted for
 The Magazine he edited.
 
 “My father was a Brownie, Sir;
 My mother was a Fairy.
 The notion had occurred to her,
 The children would be happier,
 If they were taught to vary.
 
 “The notion soon became a craze;
 And, when it once began, she
 Brought us all out in different ways -
 One was a Pixy, two were Fays,
 Another was a Banshee;
 
 “The Fetch and Kelpie went to school
 And gave a lot of trouble;
 Next came a Poltergeist and Ghoul,
 And then two Trolls (which broke the rule),
 A Goblin, and a Double -
 
 “(If that’s a snuff-box on the shelf,”
 He added with a yawn,
 “I’ll take a pinch) - next came an Elf,
 And then a Phantom (that’s myself),
 And last, a Leprechaun.
 
 “One day, some Spectres chanced to call,
 Dressed in the usual white:
 I stood and watched them in the hall,
 And couldn’t make them out at all,
 They seemed so strange a sight.
 
 “I wondered what on earth they were,
 That looked all head and sack;
 But Mother told me not to stare,
 And then she twitched me by the hair,
 And punched me in the back.
 
 “Since then I’ve often wished that I
 Had been a Spectre born.
 But what’s the use?”  (He heaved a sigh.)
 “They are the ghost-nobility,
 And look on us with scorn.
 
 “My phantom-life was soon begun:
 When I was barely six,
 I went out with an older one -
 And just at first I thought it fun,
 And learned a lot of tricks.
 
 “I’ve haunted dungeons, castles, towers -
 Wherever I was sent:
 I’ve often sat and howled for hours,
 Drenched to the skin with driving showers,
 Upon a battlement.
 
 (...)
(......)