Page:Carroll - Phantasmagoria and other poems (1869).djvu/129

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

POETA FIT, NON NASCITUR

"How shall I be a poet?
How shall I write in rhyme?
You told me once 'the very wish
Partook of the sublime:'
Then tell me how! Don't put me off
With your 'another time'!"

The old man smiled to see him,
To hear his sudden sally;
He liked the lad to speak his mind
Enthusiastically:
And thought "There's no hum-drum in him,
Nor any shilly-shally."