Jabberwocky

And now, one of my favorite poems:

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll
(Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)

'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.

I absolutely love the nonsensical nature of this poem. Lewis Carroll conjured up words as he pleased; yet somehow the poem still manages to call up iconic images. Even when a word has no known meaning, you have a general sense of things--an absolutely fantastic use of language and whimsy.

Most wonderfully indicating the broad influence of this poem, the words frabjous and chortled have been accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary. More fascinating information about the world's most famous nonsense poem can be found in the Wikipedia entry for Jabberwocky (including a glossary and pronunciation guide).

Uniting two of my favorite whimsicalities, the Muppets once performed the poem on The Muppet Show (with Brooke Shields as Alice). Afterward, Scooter proclaims it "the strangest thing we've ever done on THIS show..." Now that's saying something.