POETS Main Page INDEX of Poets INDEX of Titles & First Lines CARROLL Menu

Carroll

Lewis Carroll
(Charles Dodgson)
1832-1898

"Jabberwocky"

From "Through the Looking-Glass"
(1872)

 

There was a book lying near Alice on the table, and while she sat watching the White King . . . she turned over the leaves, to find some part that she could read, '– for it's all in some language I don't know,' she said to herself.
     It was like this:
               YKCOWREBBAJ
     . . . sevot yhtils eht dna gillirb sawT'
She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought struck her.  'Why, it's a Looking-glass book, of course!  And if I hold it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again.'
This was the poem that Alice read.
     JABBERWOCKY

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
    And the mome 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 hast 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 toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe.

'It seems very pretty,' she said when she had finished it, 'but it's rather hard to understand!' . . . 'Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't exactly know what they are!

Buy Lewis Carroll's works

POETS Main Page INDEX of Poets INDEX of Titles & First Lines CARROLL Menu