Carroll and Gleim: ‘Life, what is it but a dream?’

 

Through the Looking-Glass (1871), that famous dream-narrative, ends with this acrostic poem:

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July—

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear—

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream—
Lingering in the golden gleam—
Life, what is it but a dream?

I think this poem, and especially its famous last line, is Carroll's version of a poem by celebrated eighteenth-century German poet, Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, ‘Das Leben ist ein Traum’ (1784). We know Carroll spoke German, or at least that he worked at it: Robert D. Sutherland [Language and Lewis Carroll (The Hague: Mouton 1970), 40] quotes various diary entries to that effect (‘learn Prendergast's German hand-book’ and so on), and says: ‘that Carroll desired to achieve competence in French and German is apparent from his dogged perseverance in studying them ... for the better part of thirty years’. And in his day, Gleim was one of the most famous German poets. Here's ‘Das Leben ist ein Traum’:

Das Leben ist ein Traum!
Wir schlüpfen in die Welt und schweben
Mit jungem Zahn
Und frischem Gaum
Auf ihrem Wahn
Und ihrem Schaum,
Bis wir nicht mehr an Erde kleben:
Und dann, was ist’s, was ist das Leben?
Das Leben ist ein Traum!

Das Leben ist ein Traum:
Wir lieben, uns’re Herzen schlagen,
Und Herz an Herz
Gefüget kaum,
Ist Lieb’ und Scherz
Ein leerer Schaum,
Ist hingeschwunden, weggetragen!
Was ist das Leben? hör ich fragen:
Das Leben ist ein Traum.

Das Leben ist ein Traum!
Wir denken, zweifeln, werden Weise;
Wir teilen ein
In Art und Raum,
In Licht und Schein,
In Kraut und Baum,
Studieren und gewinnen Preise;
Dann, nah` am Grabe, sagen Greise:
Das Leben ist ein Traum!

Here's my English version:

Life is but a dream!
We slip into the world and float
With baby teeth
And eager gum
On dream-life's fleet
Drifting foam,
Til we no longer clasp the Earth:
And then, what is it, what is this Life?
Life is but a dream!

Life is but a dream:
We love, our hearts quickened,
As heart to heart
Barely join
In Love and Play
Turn but to foam
All gone, and washed away!
What is this life? I am questioned:
Life is but a dream.

Life is but a dream!
We ponder, study, we grow wise;
We share our stories
On Form, on Space,
On Light and Gleam,
On Plant and Tree,
Studying, we win the prize;
And, nearing death, the old ones deem:
Life is but a dream!

It's not just the refrain of this poem, but the imagery of the river, flowing with bubbles (Schaum, foam), that runs through it. The first five stanza's of Carroll poem owe little to Gleim, it's true: here he elaborates the specifics of his trip up the Thames with the three Liddell girls, and the ‘phantomwise’ vision of Alice herself—although that word contains, I'd argue, a kind of Gleim-y pun: phantomwise means both ‘affecting me as a phantom’ and also ‘wise in her phantom-ness’, that is: achieving the wisdom (Gleim's line 20, Weise) that is the poem's main theme: life is nothing but this phantom, this vision, this dream. And the final two stanzas of Carroll's poem strike me as a compacted gloss upon, or version of, Gleim's lyric.