To Mabel and Emily Kerr
A Double Acrostic
Thanks, Thanks Fair Cousins for your gift
So swiftly borne to Albion's Isle
Though angry waves their crests uplift
Between our shores for many a league!
("So far, so good," you say: "but how
Your Cousins? Let me tell you madam.
We're both descended, you'll allow,
From one great-great-great-grandsire, Noah.)
Your picture shall adorn the book
That's bound so neatly and moroccoly
With that bright great which every cook
Delights to see in beds of cauliflower.
The carte is very good but pray
Send me the larger one as well
"A cool request!" I hear you say.
"Give him an inch, he takes an acre!
"But we'll be generous because
We well remember in the story,
How good and gentle Alice was,
The day she argued with the parrot!"
Lewis Carroll
Emily and Mabel Kerr were two young girls living in Canada who sent their photograph to Dodgson.. He replied with this double acrostic based on the girl's first name. The last word in each stanza is a red herring; for each one substitute the correct rhyme, arrange five words vertically and then read downwards : Their first and last letters spell out Mabel and Emily.
M il E
A da M
B roccil I
E l L
L or Y
