By Lewis Carroll. From "Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There"
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.
YKCOWREBBAJ
sevot yhtils eht dna ,gillirb sawT'
ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD
,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA
.ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA
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 has 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!' (You see she didn't like to
confess, ever 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!
--
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