A Boat, Beneath a Sunny Sky

Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There’ is dedicated to the ten year old girl who was his muse and inspiration, Alice ‘Pleasance’ Liddell.  ‘A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky’ is an untitled poem that appears at the end of the book.  The poem is an acrostic in which the first letter of each line read downward, spells out the name of the author’s muse.

A Boat, Beneath a Sunny Sky

by Lewis Carroll

A boat, beneath a sunny sky

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July—

Children three that nestle near,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear—

Long has paled that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and memories die:

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream—

Lingering in the golden gleam—

Life, what is it but a dream?