A Game of Fives Poem by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)
Poetry from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems.
A Game of Fives Poem
Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One:
Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.
Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six:
Sitting down to lessons—no more time for tricks.
Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven:
Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven!
Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen:
Each young man that calls, I say “Now tell me which you mean!”
Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one:
But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?
Five showy girls—but Thirty is an age
When girls may be engaging, but they somehow don’t engage.
Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more:
So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!
* * * *
Five passé girls—Their age? Well, never mind!
We jog along together, like the rest of human kind:
But the quondam “careless bachelor” begins to think he knows
The answer to that ancient problem “how the money goes”!
A Game of Fives Poem End
Phantasmagoria and Other Poems
Lewis Carroll – Phantasmagoria Poem, in Seven Cantos
Lewis Carroll – Echoes Poem
Lewis Carroll – A Sea Dirge Poem
Lewis Carroll – Ye Carpette Knyghte Poem
Lewis Carroll – Hiawatha’s Photographing Poem
Lewis Carroll – Melancholetta Poem
Lewis Carroll – A Valentine Poem
Lewis Carroll – The Three Voices Poem
Lewis Carroll – Tèma Con Variaziòni Poem
Lewis Carroll – A Game of Fives Poem
Lewis Carroll – Poeta fit, non nascitur Poem
Lewis Carroll – Size and Tears Poem
Lewis Carroll – Atalanta in Camden-Town Poem
Lewis Carroll – The Lang Coortin’ Poem
Lewis Carroll – Four Riddles Poem
Lewis Carroll – Fame’s Penny-Trumpet Poem
