Oh! Bandersnatch!

Twas' brillig and the slithy tove

did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogroves,

and the mom raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird,

and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought - -

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

He chortled in his joy.

Twas' brillig and the slithy tove

did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogroves,

and the mom raths outgrabe.


And Alice reacts: "It seems very pretty," she said when she had finished it, "but it's rather hard to understand!" (You see she didn't like to confess even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all._ "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas - only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate . . . "