Ode to Damon E-book

                                      1861
                                  ODE TO DAMON

                                by Lewis Carroll









Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)



                              ODE TO DAMON
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              (From Chloe, who Understands His Meaning.)
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       "OH, do not forget the day when we met
         At the fruiterer's shop in the city:
       When you said I was plain and excessively vain,
         But I knew that you meant I was pretty.
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       "Recollect, too, the hour when I purchased the flour
         (For the dumplings, you know) and the suet;
       Whilst the apples I told my dear Damon to hold,
         (just to see if you knew how to do it).
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       "Then recall to your mind how you left me behind,
         And went off in a 'bus with the pippins;
       When you said you'd forgot, but I knew you had not;
         (It was merely to save the odd threepence!).
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       "Don't forget your delight in the dumplings that night,
         Though you said they were tasteless and doughy:
       But you winked as you spoke, and I saw that the joke
         (If it was one) was meant for your Chloe!
                                                     
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       "Then remember the day when Joe offered to pay
         For us all at the Great Exhibition;
       You proposed a short cut, and we found the thing shut,
         (We were two hours too late for admission).
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       "Your 'short cut', dear, we found took us seven miles
             round
         (And Joe said exactly what we did):
       Well, I helped you out then- it was just like you men-
         Not an atom of sense when it's needed!
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       "You said 'What's to be done?' and I thought you in fun
         (Never dreaming you were such a ninny).
       'Home directly!' said I, and you paid for the fly,
         (And I think that you gave him a guinea).
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       "Well, that notion, you said, had not entered your head:
          You proposed 'The best thing, as we're come, is
       (Since it opens again in the morning at ten)
                                                     
         To wait'- Oh, you Prince of all dummies!
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       "And when Joe asked you 'Why, if a man were to die,
         Just as you ran a sword through his middle,
       You'd be hung for the crime?' and you said 'Give me
             time!'
         And brought to your Chloe the riddle-
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       "Why, remember, you dunce, how I solved it at once-
         (The question which Joe had referred to you),
       Why, I told you the cause, was 'the force of the laws',
         And you said 'It had never occurred to you.'
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       "This instance will show that your brain is too slow,
         And (though your exterior is showy),
       Yet so arrant a goose can be no sort of use
         To society- come to your Chloe!
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       "You'll find no one like me, who can manage to see
         Your meaning, you talk so obscurely:
                                                     
       Why, if once I were gone, how would you get on?
         Come, you know what I mean, Damon, surely."
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       1861.
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                               THE END