Lewis Carroll is best known for his nonsense literature. It has not only survived for many decades, it has flourished and sparked the imaginations of hundreds of thousands of children, if not millions. Below we share with you, the infamous “Jabberwocky” poem.
Jabberwocky
BY LEWIS CARROLL
’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!”
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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.
Born in the small parish of Daresbury on January 27, 1832, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known by his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll) was the son of Charles Dodgson, archdeacon, and Frances Jane Lutwidge.
Nurtured by a loving mother and father, Dodgson began writing at an early age. While at the Richmond School in 1845, Dodgson composed Useful and Instructive Poetry, his first family magazine, for the edification of his seven-year-old brother, Wilfred Longley Dodgson, and his five-year-old sister, Louisa Fletcher Dodgson; this book was finally published over 100 years later, in 1954. (excerpt from the Poetry Foundation)
