a famous nonsense poem in the children’s book Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. It describes how the walrus and the carpenter persuade some young oysters (= a type of shellfish) to come with them, and then eat them. The poem’s best-known lines are:
‘The time has come’, the walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes – and ships – and sealing-wax –
Of cabbages – and kings.’