PUZZLE POEMS

bonsai tree

Welcome to Carl's poetry corner where you can run across anything from a Scottish toast to Bob Dylan to a Japanese Haiku. These are borrowed pieces and credit will be given. If you would like submit something I will certainly consider it and most assuredly give you credit for your work. If you submit please include your source. Enjoy.

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JABBERWOCKY

Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

Chapter One - Looking-Glass House

Author: Lewis Carroll

The Jabberwocky

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 Jujub 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 gree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wook,

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! Calloh! 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! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate -- '

Last Words

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Carl A Smith
Spring `98

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