A Game Of Fives Poem by Lewis Carroll

A Game Of Fives

Rating: 3.3


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 PASSE 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"!

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Yikum Shiferaw 15 December 2014

I loved the rrhymes and creativity.

10 5 Reply
Philo Yan 16 September 2012

Some families of women of that era equate husband material based on how wealthy the man or his family was. With such standards, the young women may find it hard to marry if they want t to marry for love and not for money.

7 8 Reply
Nasarudheen Parameswaran 16 September 2013

When money matters all collapse.

3 12 Reply
Kevin Straw 16 September 2012

These are five girls who will never have sex; usual in those days in middle class houses. Women were marriage fodder or on the shelf all their lives.

10 4 Reply
Karen Sinclair 16 September 2013

One of my favourite writers. This has humour and encourages a moment of pity in the middle A fun clever piece although I must say not one of my favourites of his. Yet as ever such a comfortable flow. Tyvm Karen

5 7 Reply
Aidan Wiedrich 19 March 2019

Lewis Carroll was a lolicon

2 0 Reply
esmaeil AAabedini 18 August 2016

..... thank you! ! ! ! ! !

6 1 Reply
Mysterious Writer 333 17 May 2016

I loved the way this poem rhymed and at the same time held so much meaning!

4 3 Reply
M Asim Nehal 04 October 2015

Superb rhythmic poem.....

11 6 Reply
Akshansh Poonam Pandey 31 July 2015

The Age content is made very wisely. The poems rhymes good.

12 5 Reply
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