Nobody in this poem is frightened, and that is the joke. A ghost has just slipped away, apparently to haunt someone called Tibbs at half-past three in the morning. What he leaves behind is a muddled, slightly tipsy host who feels very sorry for himself. Lewis Carroll, best remembered for the Alice books, turns the Gothic ghost story into a comedy of manners, and this canto is its mock funeral.
The opening questions set the tone: "Have I slept? / Or can I have been drinking?" The narrator offers sleep and drink as equally likely explanations for a visit from a spirit, and a few stanzas later he decides "to mix another glass," which suggests drink is the likelier answer. His grief is just as unreliable. He sits and weeps "an hour or so, like winking," and the simile undoes itself, since an hour of sobbing cannot happen in the blink of an eye. The sorrow is real enough to him, but it is also quick, theatrical and easily dropped.
His thoughts about Tibbs show how self-centred he is. He does not wonder whether the ghost is in danger or whether Tibbs will be terrified. He worries that Tibbs, "snug in bed," won't enjoy being "dropped in upon," exactly as the narrator wouldn't. He then predicts, with great confidence, that Tibbs "will have the best of it." The ghost is treated like a pushy neighbour, and the supernatural is reduced to bad manners at an awkward hour.
The form helps the humour. The stanzas have five lines and rhyme ABAAB, a pattern that makes each stanza feel like a limerick that has stopped to think. The rhythm is a loose, bouncing iambic line that often trips into extra syllables, which suits a speaker who is rambling. Carroll likes to stretch a rhyme until it becomes a gag. "Rest of it" and "best of it" rhyme in two syllables, and the stumble is part of the fun. The title's "Sad Souvenaunce," an old-fashioned spelling of a word for remembrance, dresses the whole thing in mock-medieval clothes.
The centrepiece is the "Coronach," a word for a funeral lament. Its capital letters make the song look carved on a gravestone, and its first lines sound suitably noble: "AND ART THOU GONE, BELOVED GHOST?" Then the bathos arrives. The narrator's farewell is to "MY DUCKLING ROAST," "MY TEA AND TOAST," and "MY MEERSCHAUM AND CIGARS." The ghost is mourned as one more creature comfort, and the list shows what the narrator values: warmth, food, smoke and company. The lament then swerves into affectionate insult, calling the ghost "OLD BRICK" and then "OLD PARALLELEPIPED." That final word exists chiefly to rhyme with "insipid," and the narrator knows it. He stops singing because, "after such a splendid word," any more verses would be "absurd." It is a joke about poets who pursue a clever rhyme at the expense of feeling, and Carroll makes it at his own expense.
The ending changes the mood a little. The narrator sleeps and dreams of "Poltergeist and Fetch and Fay / And Leprechaun and Brownie," a cheerful parade of sprites that reads like a child's wish-list. Then the last stanza admits that no Sprite has visited since, while the ghost's goodbye still echoes: "Old Turnip-top, good-night!" The insult has become a pet name, and the poem's comedy suddenly has loneliness underneath it. Judging by the text, the narrator misses the ghost because the ghost treated him as a friend. The silly lament was covering a real gap, and the last line is the only moment when the narrator is quiet and listening.
That blend is what makes the poem worth reading. It parodies solemn elegy and ghost stories, yet it does not simply sneer at grief. The funniest moments, the roast duckling and the absurd rhyme, are also the ones that show how ordinary and human the narrator's need for company is. Carroll lets nonsense carry a small, true feeling, and the joke is stronger for it.