’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

    Did gyre and gimble in the wade;

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 wiffling 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.

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) is the pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, an Anglican deacon, mathematician and photographer, best known as the author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. “Jabberwocky,” which is from that latter book, is the most famous nonsense poem in the English language. Part of its pleasure derives from the fact that despite its invented vocabulary the reader can easily understand the general outline of the story.