Haddocks' Eyes - Upon The Lonely Moor

Upon The Lonely Moor

Like "Jabberwocky," another poem published in Through the Looking Glass, "Haddocks’ Eyes" appears to have been revised over the course of many years. In 1856, Carroll published the following poem anonymously under the name Upon the Lonely Moor. It bears an obvious resemblance to "Haddocks' Eyes."

I met an aged, aged man

Upon the lonely moor:

I knew I was a gentleman,

And he was but a boor.

So I stopped and roughly questioned him,

"Come, tell me how you live!"

But his words impressed my ear no more

Than if it were a sieve.

He said, "I look for soap-bubbles,

That lie among the wheat,

And bake them into mutton-pies,

And sell them in the street.

I sell them unto men," he said,

"Who sail on stormy seas;

And that's the way I get my bread -

A trifle, if you please."

But I was thinking of a way

To multiply by ten,

And always, in the answer, get

The question back again.

I did not hear a word he said,

But kicked that old man calm,

And said, "Come, tell me how you live!"

And pinched him in the arm.

His accents mild took up the tale:

He said, "I go my ways,

And when I find a mountain-rill,

I set it in a blaze.

And thence they make a stuff they call

Rowland's Macassar Oil;

But fourpence-halfpenny is all

They give me for my toil."

But I was thinking of a plan

To paint one's gaiters green,

So much the color of the grass

That they could ne'er be seen.

I gave his ear a sudden box,

And questioned him again,

And tweaked his grey and reverend locks,

And put him into pain.

He said, "I hunt for haddock's eyes

Among the heather bright,

And work them into waistcoat-buttons

In the silent night.

And these I do not sell for gold,

Or coin or silver-mine,

But for a copper-halfpenny,

And that will purchase nine.

"I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,

Or set limed twigs for crabs;

I sometimes search the flowery knolls

For wheels of hansom cabs.

And that's the way" (he gave a wink)

"I get my living here,

And very gladly will I drink

Your Honour's health in beer."

I heard him then, for I had just

Completed my design

To keep the Menai bridge from rust

By boiling it in wine.

I duly thanked him, ere I went,

For all his stories queer,

But chiefly for his kind intent

To drink my health in beer.

And now if e'er by chance I put

My fingers into glue,

Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot

Into a left-hand shoe;

Or if a statement I aver

Of which I am not sure,

I think of that strange wanderer

Upon the lonely moor.