'Tis the Voice of the Lobster Lyrics
Four nonsense lines in which a lobster complains that he has been baked too brown and says he must sugar his hair. Alice recites it in Wonderland when she is asked for a different poem, and her muddle is the joke.
'Tis the Voice of the Lobster
'Tis the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare,
"You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/tis-the-voice-of-the-lobster/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Lewis Carroll
- Tune
- Said in a pompous, complaining voice, then a quick fussy one for the belt and buttons
- Best for ages
- 5 to 12 years
What Does 'Tis the Voice of the Lobster Mean?
The lobster in these lines talks like a person who has been through the oven. "You have baked me too brown", he says, as if he were a cake that came out too dark, and then he has a fix: "I must sugar my hair", like icing on a cake. A lobster has no hair, so every part of the complaint is made up on the spot.
The second pair of lines is about tidiness. As a duck uses its eyelids, the lobster uses his nose to straighten his belt and buttons and "turns out his toes", which is how a dancer stands with the feet pointing outward. How a nose could do all that is not explained, and not having to explain it is the fun.
The joke is that the voice is so grand and the matter so silly. Say it as if it were important news and children will start to giggle at "sugar my hair".
History and Origin
Lewis Carroll put these lines in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), chapter 10. In the story the Gryphon asks Alice to recite "'Tis the voice of the sluggard", a well-known verse about a lazy person that children of Carroll's day knew. Alice's head is so full of the dancing lobsters that she gets the words wrong and recites this lobster verse instead, and the Mock Turtle finds it very confusing. So the poem is a parody: it borrows the sound and the shape of the original, with the lobster in the place of the sluggard.
The text here comes from Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, published in October 1921, which sets Carroll's verses to music. The dancing lobsters of the story have their own page: The Lobster Quadrille.
Learning Activities
- Pompous voice: take turns reading the four lines in a grand, important voice, and see who can keep a straight face.
- Draw the lobster: sketch a lobster with a belt, buttons and toes turned out, using the details in the poem.
- Spot the odd words: ask which things in the poem a real lobster could not do, and list them together.
- Make your own parody: choose a creature and write two lines in which it complains about something silly, in the same grand tone.