“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes – and ships – and sealing wax -
Of cabbages – and kings -
And why the sea is boiling hot -
And whether pigs have wings.”
- Lewis Carroll from “Through the Looking Glass”
This is one of the poems we read Saturday night by our fire.
I absolutely love this poem.
I love the way it sounds when read aloud. I love the images. I love the walrus, the carpenter, the cute, perky oysters with their little shoes on hopping through the waves. Does it get any better than that?
The wise old oyster who doesn’t want to go, the eager young oysters not seeing the danger before them. The shyster carpenter and his slightly hesitant but willing accomplice the walrus. And the poor trotting oysters…trotting off to their death. So cute with their perky little shoes on.
Man, how could they eat them? How weak of the walrus to succumb to peer pressure like that. And then to make matters worse those fake tears of quasi-remorse as he sorts them out, no less.
Please.
Come to think of it, maybe this poem is a little too realistic for me. Kind of gruesome, actually.
And to think, it’s listed in the “Just Nonsense” section of the poetry anthology.
Yea.
