Which poet did Lewis Carroll parody in 'You Are Old, Father William'?

The poet Lewis Carroll parodied in “You Are Old, Father William” was Robert Southey. Carroll’s poem appears in Chapter 5 of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice recites it to the Caterpillar after being asked to repeat a familiar verse.

The parody is based on Southey’s “The Old Man’s Comforts and How He Gained Them,” a didactic poem first published in 1799. Southey’s original presents an older man explaining how disciplined habits and religious-minded conduct brought him a respectable old age. Carroll keeps the question-and-answer structure but replaces the moral instruction with absurd claims about Father William’s agility, appetite, and eccentric behaviour.

Readers sometimes confuse the source with other Victorian poets because Carroll parodied several well-known children’s verses. “How Doth the Little Busy Bee,” for example, is transformed into “How Doth the Little Crocodile,” but that poem is not the source of “You Are Old, Father William.” Southey’s original has largely faded from popular memory, while Carroll’s parody remains widely recognized.