Great Regulars: But it's interesting that she talks

of "my day" rather than "your day". Is this a slip of transcription ---- or a psychological insight, a glimpse of the glowing pride of new motherhood? Either way, the carol maintains its joyous mood, and its banter. Mary makes another tender parental bargain. Be very very good, and you'll have another lullaby. "This Endris Night" never loses its human touch, even as it looks towards heavenly bliss.

"This Endris Night"

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: This Endris Night

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[Robert] Southey's poem is poor not because it preaches, but because it preaches flatly and falsely. [Lewis] Carroll's poem works because it relishes the absurdity it creates. It gives us characters and sets them talking, as real people talk, self--revealingly, and often at cross purposes. There's no question which of the poems best fulfils its own aims. But of course we should be grateful for Southey's gift to Carroll's comic genius. Literary triumphs often have their source at lower levels of literary invention. Even if the imitation outclasses the model, without the latter it would never have existed.

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Lewis Carroll's Robert Southey

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