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JABBERWOCKY |
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There was a book lying near Alice on the table, and while she sat watching the White King (for she was still a little anxious about him, and had the ink all ready to throw over him, in case he fainted again), 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. 
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 borogroves, 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 fruminous 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 galamphing back
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"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 borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
“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— Drawing by John Tenniel:
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