A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky - 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?


Lewis Carroll was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in 1832 in England. Though he is best known for his writing, Carroll was also a mathematician, logician and a photographer. He adopted the pen-name “Lewis Carroll” around 1966, and used it for the publication of several titles, including Alice in Wonderland. Carroll was known for his wordplay, and for popularizing the genre of “literary nonsense” (a genre  into which most of his works fall).

“A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky” was published in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Saw There, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland.

Aside from his writing and mathematical publications, Carroll also created several inventions during his life. These included a postage stamp case (to promote letter writing, about which he was passionate), a writing tablet to enable clearer note-taking in the dark, a predecessor to Scrabble, and a predecessor to Word Ladder. While his life was rife with controversy, illness and depression, Carroll ultimately contributed a great deal to culture, spanning across many fields and disciplines.