Good afternoon!
The poem for yesterday is "The Miller's Daughter" by Lord Alfred Tennyson.
On the 25th of March in 1881, Lewis Carroll wrote about it in a letter to Agnes Hull. But details about that will come tomorrow with the poem for today!
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50267/the-millers-daughter
In his letter to Agnes Hull on March 25, 1881, Lewis Carroll wrote:
"
My own Aggie,
(Though, when I think of all the pain you have given me, I feel inclined to put the syllables in another order and say, "My Agg own ie!") Of course I guessed at once, when I heard that you knew I had been delayed by the snow in getting from London to Oxford, that you had read the paragraph in The Times beginning "One of the passengers delayed on this occasion we need not name: it will be enough to tell our readers that he was the most distinguished man in England. Not only the tallest, the strongest, the most beautiful — he is all that, but that would be little. He is also the wisest, the most amiable, the most, etc., etc., etc.," and I was going to write to you to say how vexed I was that the Editor had made the description so plain, and that I had begged him not to let anyone know I had been in that train — but on second thoughts, I decided that the most truly modest course would be not to write about myself: so I say no more.
Do you know Tennyson's poem beginning:
It is the miller's daughter,
And she is grown so dear, so dear,
That I would be the jewel
That sparkles in her ear?
Well, you will be interested to hear that I have luckily found (among some old papers of Mr. Tennyson's) the original manuscript. It is very much torn: I will give you an exact copy over the page. He has altered it very much since. The first title was "How an Elderly Person took a Young Person to the Play, but could not get her way again." And he had begun it in quite a different metre:
Two went one day
To visit the play:
One came away:
The other would stay.
And then he seems to have changed his mind, and written it as I now give it to you.
"
Good morning!
The poem for yesterday is what Lewis Carroll included with his letter to Agnes Hull.
The first lines are an adaptation of the Tennyson's poem "The Miller's Daugher".
It is the lawyer's daughter
And she is grown so dear, so dear
She costs me, in one evening,
The income of a year!
"You can't have children's love," she cried
"Unless you choose to fee 'em!"
"And what's your fee, Child?" I replied.
She simply said "Lyceum."
We saw The Cup. I hoped she'd say
"I'm grateful to you — very."
She murmured, as she turned away,
"That lovely Ellen Terry.
Compared with her, the rest," she cried
"Are just like two or three um-
berellas standing side by side!
O gbem of the Lyceum."
We saw Two Brothers: I confess
To me they seemed one man.
"Now which is which, Child? Can you guess?"
She cried "A-course I can!"
Bad puns like this I always dread,
And am resolved to flee 'em:
And so I left her there, and fled;
She lives at the Lyceum.