You Are Old, Father William Lyrics
A young man asks an old man why he does impossible things, and each answer is a bigger joke than the last. Lewis Carroll's poem first appeared in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 and pokes fun at a serious poem.
You Are Old, Father William
"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?"
"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."
"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?"
"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."
"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?"
"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."
"You are old," said the youth; "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balance an eel on the end of your nose -
What made you so awfully clever?"
"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!"
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/you-are-old-father-william/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Lewis Carroll
- First published
- 1865
- Tune
- Read aloud in two voices, a bouncy youth and a calm old man
- Best for ages
- 6 to 12 years
What Does You Are Old, Father William Mean?
The poem is a conversation in eight short verses. The youth asks four questions, and each one is about something an old man should not manage: standing on his head, turning a back somersault, eating a whole goose with the bones and beak, balancing an eel on the end of his nose. The answers are the jokes. Father William is not hurt by the headstands because, he says, he now has no brain to injure. He kept his limbs supple with an ointment, which he offers to sell for a shilling a box. His strong jaw comes from arguing every case with his wife.
The last verse is the punch line. By then the old man has had enough, and he says he has answered three questions and that is enough, since the fourth, about the eel, he refuses. He ends with a joking threat to kick the youth downstairs. It is the kind of thing an impatient grown-up says and does not mean: the poem simply stops there and nobody is hurt.
A few words: incessantly means without stopping, supple means easy to bend, suet is hard fat used in old-fashioned puddings, and a sage is a wise person.
History and Origin
Lewis Carroll, the pen name of the Oxford mathematics teacher Charles Dodgson, put the poem into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). In the story, Alice recites it to the Caterpillar, and it comes out in a muddle.
It is a parody. It answers a poem by Robert Southey, The Old Man's Comforts, and How He Gained Them, published in 1799, in which a young man asks an old man why he is so healthy and cheerful, and the old man gives sensible, serious answers. Carroll kept the question-and-answer shape and turned every answer into a joke.
Learning Activities
- Two voices: one child reads the youth's questions and another reads Father William's answers.
- Count the questions: find the question marks and decide why Father William says three.
- Draw the answers: draw an old man balancing an eel on his nose and a box of ointment with a price tag.
- Write a new question: make up a ninth verse where the youth asks about something else, and think of a silly answer.