The Full Text of “You Are Old, Father William”
1"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
2"And your hair has become very white;
3And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
4Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
5"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
6"I feared it might injure the brain;
7But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
8Why, I do it again and again."
9"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
10And have grown most uncommonly fat;
11Yet you turned a back somersault in at the door—
12Pray, what is the reason of that?"
13"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
14"I kept all my limbs very supple
15By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—
16Allow me to sell you a couple?"
17"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
18For anything tougher than suet;
19Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
20Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
21"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
22And argued each case with my wife;
23And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
24Has lasted the rest of my life."
25"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
26That your eye was as steady as ever;
27Yet, you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—
28What made you so awfully clever?"
29"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
30Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
31Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
32Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"
The Full Text of “You Are Old, Father William”
1"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
2"And your hair has become very white;
3And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
4Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
5"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
6"I feared it might injure the brain;
7But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
8Why, I do it again and again."
9"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
10And have grown most uncommonly fat;
11Yet you turned a back somersault in at the door—
12Pray, what is the reason of that?"
13"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
14"I kept all my limbs very supple
15By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—
16Allow me to sell you a couple?"
17"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
18For anything tougher than suet;
19Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
20Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
21"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
22And argued each case with my wife;
23And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
24Has lasted the rest of my life."
25"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
26That your eye was as steady as ever;
27Yet, you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—
28What made you so awfully clever?"
29"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
30Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
31Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
32Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"
-
“You Are Old, Father William” Introduction
-
"You Are Old, Father William" is one of the poems embedded in Lewis Carroll's children's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). It's a parody of the once-popular didactic poem "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them" (1799), by the onetime Poet Laureate of the UK, Robert Southey. In Carroll's book, Alice tries to recite the Southey poem to the Caterpillar, only to find that it comes out very differently—"wrong from beginning to end," as the Caterpillar scolds. Rather than teaching the value of healthy, pious living, the Carroll poem revels in nonsensical clowning. At the same time, Carroll's Father William seems to mock the assumption that old folks will be (or should be) boring, settled, and frail.
-
-
“You Are Old, Father William” Summary
-
A young man points out that his father is gray-haired and elderly, yet is constantly doing headstands. He questions whether that's a wise thing for an old man to do.
Father William answers that, when he was young, he was afraid that doing headstands might hurt his brain. But now that he's certain he has no brain, he does them all the time.
The son again tells his dad that he's grown old, and points out that he's also become obese, so he wonders why his dad just made an entrance by doing a backward somersault.
The wise old man shakes his gray hair and replies that, when he was young, he stayed limber by using a medicinal cream on his arms and legs. He offers to sell his son the cream for one shilling (1/20th of a pound) per box.
The son repeats that his dad is old and claims that he can't chew anything tougher than pudding. But he also notes that his dad ate a whole goose—skeleton, beak, and all—and asks how he accomplished that.
His father answers that, as a young man, he practiced law and argued cases before his wife. He claims that this activity permanently beefed up his jaw muscles.
The son says that one would expect a man his dad's age to have weakened eyesight. But he notes that his dad just steadied an eel on the tip of his nose, and wonders how he managed that trick.
Annoyed, Father William says that he's already answered three questions, and that's plenty—his son shouldn't act so superior. He adds that he doesn't have time to listen anymore, and tells his son to go away before he boots him down the stairs.
-
-
“You Are Old, Father William” Themes
-
Age, Vitality, and Exuberance
"You Are Old, Father William" is a parody of Robert Southey's "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them" (1799), a once-popular moralistic poem that urges healthy living, prudence, and piety. Unlike Southey's poem, Carroll's "nonsense" version offers no serious advice on living to a happy, healthy old age. Instead, when asked how he remains so vigorous, Carroll's "Father William" gives answers that are cheerfully ridiculous or cynical. Finally, he silences his son's questions and threatens to boot him down the stairs. Though the poem refuses to provide useful lessons, it delights in its own clownish absurdity, hinting that this kind of attitude offers a more vibrant life than self-righteous morality.
The poem originally appeared in Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Alice recites it when trying to recite the Southey poem, and the Caterpillar tells her she's gotten the text "wrong from beginning to end." The poem is framed, then, as an absurd twist on a supposedly serious work.
The poem itself then provides "wrong," nonsensical advice on how the elderly can stay healthy and strong. Unlike the original, in which the young man asks the father how he stays happy as well as healthy, Carroll's questioner asks about absurd feats of strength and dexterity: how Father William does headstands and somersaults, eats a goose whole, and balances an eel on his nose. Father William sounds more like a circus performer than a typical old man, and his achievements are more bizarre than admirable. If the questions are of dubious value, the answers are even less helpful. Father William claims, for example, that he doesn't fear brain injuries because he's brainless, and tries to sell his son a cheap ointment. Ultimately, he refuses to answer further questions and tells his son to go away—not exactly advice the reader can use.
But while Father William isn't helpful in any direct way, he demonstrates great playfulness and vitality—and this, the poem seems to suggest, is a better (or at least more interesting) lesson than a bunch of somber life advice. Again, Carroll's poem parodies Southey's, which advises clean, wise, and godly living. Carroll implicitly rejects these conventional virtues in favor of comic antics. If Father William stands for anything, it's clownish exuberance and large appetites. He seems to love food, conversation (he argues so much that it develops his jaw muscles!), and in his own strange way, life itself.
As an exuberantly funny poet, Carroll seems to promote these kinds of virtues over solemn piety. In the end, Carroll's Father William teaches his son another kind of lesson—by kicking him out after he asks too many questions! The father tells the son not to "give [him]self airs"—act snobbish—and grows impatient with his rational, literal-minded grilling. It's as if he's telling his son to go live life rather than try to figure everything out.
So while the poem is too zany and anarchic to have a straightforward moral, it does convey an infectiously playful attitude. In the true spirit of Wonderland, it favors nonsense over sense and comic wildness over sober restraint.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
-
Youthful Disrespect and Old-Age Stereotypes
"You Are Old, Father William" rejects not only pious moralizing but also the idea that the elderly shouldn't be having fun and doing what they want. The son's questions for his father carry an undertone of condescension and disapproval, as if he assumes that the elderly must be frail, feeble, and sheltered. Father William makes these assumptions look ridiculous and finally dismisses his son altogether. In the process, the poem seems to laugh off patronizing attitudes toward senior citizens, suggesting that older people are perfectly capable of living life to the fullest.
The son acts concerned for his father but is really condescending, in the way younger people often are toward seniors. For example, he repeatedly stresses his father's advanced age ("You are old [...] You are old"), gray hair, increased weight, and so on. When his father performs headstands, his son archly asks, "Do you think, at your age, it is right?"—as though there were something a bit distasteful about an older person having so much fun.
Similarly, he frets that his father's "jaws are too weak" to eat a whole goose, even though they clearly aren't. He's describing a stereotype about the old (that they have to stick to softer foods) rather than the reality in front of him. Even when he asks how his father is "clever" enough to balance an eel on his nose, he coats his admiration in condescension: "one would hardly suppose / That your eye was as steady as ever."
Father William's answers can be read as snappy retorts to the son's condescending assumptions. For example, his claim that he does headstands because he has no "brain" to "injure" might sarcastically play off stereotypes of the elderly as feeble-minded. His offer to "sell" his son the muscle ointment he uses suggests that his son could learn a thing or two rather than criticizing his elders' bodies. (Offering to sell it to his son is also more stinging and cynical than offering it as a gift.) Eventually, he tells his son not to put on "airs" and sends him off. Again, he's irritated not just at his son's persistent questions but at the patronizing attitude behind them.
In all these ways, the poem seems to mock what might now be called "ageism," and particularly the kind of disdain for older people that parades as concern for their well-being.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
-
-
Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “You Are Old, Father William”
-
Lines 1-4
"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"The opening stanza introduces the first speaker in the poem's dialogue. A "young man" addresses a man named "Father William," bluntly informing him that he's grown "old" and that his hair has turned "very white." Yet, despite his advanced years, Father William "incessantly stand[s] on his head"! In confusion or distaste, the young man asks, "Do you think, at your age, it is right?" In other words, should you really be doing acrobatics all the time?
What's going on here? Although most modern audiences won't catch the reference without guidance, Lewis Carroll is parodying—that is, mimicking and poking fun at—a poem that would have been familiar to his original readers. That poem is "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them" (1799), by Robert Southey, the one-time Poet Laureate of the UK. Southey's poem is serious and moralistic, as this opening excerpt shows:
You are old, Father William, the young man cried,
The few locks which are left you are grey;
You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,
Now tell me the reason I pray.In the days of my youth, Father William replied,
I remember'd that youth would fly fast,
And abused not my health and my vigour at first
That I never might need them at last.It's no fun at all, but it was assigned to many schoolchildren of the Victorian period as a lesson in healthy, prudent, pious living. Sometimes students were assigned to memorize and recite the poem. In Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice herself tries to recite it to the Caterpillar—but to her surprise, instead of Southey's original, she stammers out this parody instead.
Notice that Carroll preserves some elements of the original, making the parody easier to recognize. His poem, too, begins with "You are old, Father William," a reference to the father's gray/white hair, and an acknowledgment of the old man's vigor. It also borrows Southey's rhymed quatrains and anapestic (da-da-DUM, da-da-DUM) meter.
However, Carroll also makes some important changes. Not only does he turn Father William into a clowning acrobat—comically exaggerating his health and vigor by having him do headstands—he also changes the rhyme scheme from ABCB to ABAB. The second is a little harder to pull off, and also a little more musical, so it's a subtle way of making the poem wittier and more pleasing to the ear. Southey hoped to instruct his young readers; Carroll hoped to entertain them!
-
Lines 5-8
"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again." -
Lines 9-12
"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back somersault in at the door—
Pray, what is the reason of that?" -
Lines 13-16
"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—
Allow me to sell you a couple?" -
Lines 17-20
"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
Pray, how did you manage to do it?" -
Lines 21-24
"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life." -
Lines 25-28
"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet, you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—
What made you so awfully clever?" -
Lines 29-32
"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"
-
-
“You Are Old, Father William” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
-
Repetition
The poem uses a simple, repetitive, question-and-answer structure. For example, every other stanza begins with "You are old" (usually "'You are old,' said the youth"), as the son sets up another question for his elderly father. The third line of each of these stanzas begins with "And yet you" or "Yet you," as the son points out his father's unexpected behavior. In turn, the father's responses always begin with "In my youth" (at least until the final stanza, when he refuses to answer any more questions).
These elements are borrowed, with small modifications, from Robert Southey's "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them," which Carroll's poem parodies. They help ground Carroll's parody in its source material, making it funnier to its original audience (Victorian-era schoolkids, many of whom would have known the Southey poem). Carroll's poem also contains a few subtler repetitions, such as the phrase "again and again" in line 8. Both Southey and Carroll were writing with an eye toward younger readers and knew that heavy repetition makes poetry easier for kids to follow, enjoy, and memorize. The recurring phrases in "You Are Old, Father William" have helped the poem lodge in many readers' memories, from 1865 to the present day. (Its sense of humor has helped, too—whereas the humorless Southey poem has largely been forgotten!)
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Alliteration
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Assonance
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Dialogue
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Imagery
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
-
"You Are Old, Father William" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Incessantly
- Back somersault
- Supple
- Ointment
- Shilling
- Suet
- Airs
- Stuff
-
Constantly.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
-
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “You Are Old, Father William”
-
Form
The poem is a kind of narrative ballad: it unfolds in short, rhymed quatrains (four-line stanzas) that tell a story. It includes dialogue in a question-and-answer format, which is also a common feature of traditional ballads. But where a typical ballad would use an iambic meter (da-DUM, da-DUM rhythm) and ABCB rhyme scheme, this one has an anapestic meter (da-da-DUM, da-da-DUM) and ABAB rhyme scheme.
The poem is, of course, also a parody of Robert Southey's "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them." Carroll's poem borrows its meter from Southey's, while the ABAB rhyme scheme is Carroll's addition; it makes his poem a bit more musical and fun to hear than the Southey, which rhymes ABCB.
Here's Southy's opening stanza, for comparison:
You are old, Father William, the young man cried,
The few locks which are left you are grey;
You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,
Now tell me the reason I pray.Though Southey's poem isn't funny, it, too, was intended for younger readers, as a kind of moral lesson—and it was often assigned to Victorian schoolchildren as a recitation piece. This is why the Caterpillar calls on Alice to recite it in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
-
Meter
The poem is written in alternating lines of anapestic tetrameter and anapestic trimeter. An anapest is a metrical foot with two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable, while tetrameter and trimeter indicate that there are four and three feet per line, respectively. As such, the basic rhythm of the poem goes like this: da-da-DUM, da-da-DUM, da-da-DUM, da-da-DUM, / da-da-DUM, da-da-DUM, da-da-DUM. Readers can hear this rhythm clearly in lines 29-30, for example:
"I have an- | swered three ques- | tions, and that | is enough,"
Said his fa- | ther. "Don't give | yourself airs!As in nearly all metrical poems, there are some variations. For example, it's common to drop an unstressed syllable at the beginning of an anapestic line, creating a "headless" line. Readers can hear this effect in line 3, whose first foot ("And yet") contains just one unstressed syllable.
In general, though, Carroll keeps the meter smooth throughout. This waltzing, swinging rhythm is a staple of children's poetry, including light verse like Carroll's. Some other examples of anapestic poetry written for children include Edward Lear's limericks, Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat, and Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (a.k.a. "'Twas the Night Before Christmas").
-
Rhyme Scheme
The poem is written in quatrains that rhyme ABAB. This rhyme scheme contrasts slightly with that of the Robert Southey poem Carroll is parodying (see the Form section), which rhymes ABCB. Carroll's rhyme scheme is a little harder to pull off, and also a little more musical, so it adds an extra component of wit and fun to a poem designed to appeal to kids.
All of the rhymes here are full or exact rhymes ("said"/"head," "white"/"right," etc.), as is usually the case in Carroll's poetry. This pattern makes the poem especially witty and ear-pleasing, while also adding an element of logic and order to a poem about zany nonsense. (This tension between opposites enhances the comedy: the poetry sounds like it's on its best behavior, but it describes an old man who's doing acrobatics rather than acting dignified.) Full rhymes in a regular scheme are also the easiest for children to hear and follow.
-
-
“You Are Old, Father William” Speaker
-
The poem has a third-person speaker, a nameless narrator who recounts the dialogue between Father William and his son. This speaker is barely noticeable at all, except when injecting a bit of commentary in line 13:
"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
Here, the speaker praises Father William (a "sage" is a wise older person) and describes him shaking his head (with its "locks" of "grey" hair), possibly after finishing a headstand. Otherwise, the poem is dominated by its two characters' voices.
As featured in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, however, the poem has another kind of speaker—Alice herself! The little girl tries to recite Robert Southey's "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them" (a poem she might have memorized for school), only to recite this silly parody version instead. Through the magic of Wonderland, what's intended as a serious, moralistic poem turns into a zany comedy.
-
-
“You Are Old, Father William” Setting
-
The poem doesn't contain much in terms setting description, but it seems to take place in Father William's home. His son most likely lives in the same house, though he could just be visiting.
In line 11, the son mentions that Father William has come somersaulting "in at the door." Later, in line 19, the son mentions that his father "finished the goose," apparently at the dinner table. Finally, in line 32, Father William threatens to kick his son "down stairs," with the authority of someone who owns the place. All this makes it sound like these two are conducting their dialogue in an upstairs room in a family home. The setting doesn't add much to the meaning of the poem, but it does suggest that this is partly a poem about family, or the age-old friction between fathers and sons.
-
-
Literary and Historical Context of “You Are Old, Father William”
-
Literary Context
"You Are Old, Father William" is a parody of Robert Southey's 1799 didactic poem "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them." It appears in the fifth chapter of Lewis Carroll's classic children's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865; often called simply Alice in Wonderland). Though little remembered today, Southey's poem was once commonly assigned to Victorian schoolchildren, and in the Carroll book, Alice tries dutifully to recite it to the Caterpillar. But it comes out all "wrong," as things tend to do in Wonderland. Instead of Southey's poem about staying healthy, focusing on the future, and honoring God, Alice recites this absurd exchange between a quizzical son and a somersaulting father.
The poem also falls under the category of nonsense literature. Broadly, nonsense literature is characterized by whimsical humor, eccentric characters, and the use of poetic elements that both facilitate and hinder meaning. For example, while this poem is a kind of narrative ballad with a strict meter and rhyme scheme, the actions it describes are extremely silly—even random-seeming. Like the son in the poem, rational-minded readers may be left scratching their heads at Father William's behavior. Other readers will just laugh at his clowning and give up on trying to make it all make sense.
Along with his contemporary Edward Lear, Carroll pioneered the nonsense genre in the mid-1800s. While Carroll is famous for his nonsensical stories and poems in the Alice books, Lear is best known for his limericks and brief narrative poems ("The Owl and the Pussy-Cat," "The Duck and the Kangaroo," etc.).
One notable poet influenced by Carroll and Lear was T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), who is associated with the 20th-century modernist tradition rather than nonsense poetry. (Though his book of verse for children, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, remains popular.) In a lecture titled "The Music of Poetry," Eliot claimed of Carroll and Lear that their poetry was "not a vacuity of sense; it is a parody of sense, and that is the sense of it."
Historical Context
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) wrote in mid-19th-century England, during the Victorian era (1837-1901). This was a time of rapidly accumulating wealth and economic progress, as a result of both the British Empire's colonial expansion and the Industrial Revolution. Population increased almost everywhere in the British Isles (except in Ireland during the Great Famine), and London became a booming metropolis. Conditions for the working class, however, remained awful. Many poorer people, including children, worked long hours in unsanitary factories and mines, which were often breeding grounds for infectious diseases.
Although literature thrived thanks to the general increase in wealth and population, much of it focused on the social problems connected to both, particularly income inequality and the widening gap between social classes. The idea that literature could include nonsensical humor was still a foreign concept to many people, yet it was in the realm of whimsy and laughter that Carroll thrived—perhaps partly in reaction to the struggles of the time.
-
-
More “You Are Old, Father William” Resources
-
External Resources
-
A Reading of the Poem — Listen to a reading of "You Are Old, Father William" (complete with silly voices).
-
The Poem in Context — Read the poem as it appears in Chapter 5 of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, along with John Tenniel's famous illustrations.
-
The Song Set to Music — Listen to They Might Be Giants's musical adaptation of the poem.
-
The Source of the Parody — Read Robert Southey's "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them" (1799), the poem that "You Are Old, Father William" parodies.
-
The Poet's Life and Work — Read a biography of Carroll via the Poetry Foundation.
-
-
LitCharts on Other Poems by Lewis Carroll
-
