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The Worlds of Gilbert and Sullivan

This poem by Lewis Carroll (or if you prefer - Revd Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Mathematics Lecturer, Christ Church College, Oxford ) is the start of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. All aboard for the tale of a lifetime:

All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?

Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict "to begin it" - 
In gentler tones Secunda hopes
"There will be nonsense in it" - 
While Tertia interrupts the tale
Not more than once a minute.

Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast - 
And half believe it true.

And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
"The rest next time - " "It is next time!"
The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out - 
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.

Alice! A childish story take,
And with a gentle hand
Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined
In memory's mystic band,
Like pilgrim's withered wreath of flowers
Plucked in a far-off land.

We will enter this magic land in the full MusicSmiles site in due course. In the meantime we hope our little taster whetted your appetite for the full story as it did Arthur Sullivan's and millions of others all those years ago. And it still does today!!

In the meantime . . .

Perhaps we would like a trot next, with a  Dear Little Donkey! . . .

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