(no subject)

[hsifeng]

 

I was a kid with a big imagination, raised by parents who encouraged me to find my own entertainments. I read a lot. I adventured over rambling hill-and-dale. I played D&D from the age of 6. Around that same time, I discovered my performance bug. Mom got me signed up in a local poetry festival for kids and I got to pick my own poem.

I picked this one.

I can still recite it from memory, 31 years later.

~~~~~~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~~~~~~

`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.

 Jabberwocky ~ Lewis Carroll

 

Comments

[jukeboxhound.livejournal.com]

The jabberwocky will always make me think of Batman.

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Really? This is tickling my memory as a reference I should know, but my brain is failing me...

Brillig!!!

[brickhousewench.livejournal.com]

One of my alltime favorite poems!

Re: Brillig!!!

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

*dances you around the room shouting nonsense words and giggling*

Re: Brillig!!!

[brickhousewench.livejournal.com]

Hee! But they're not nonsense words! One of my favorite English teacher lesson plans was an exercise where we figured out the parts of speech in Jabbarwocky. Because you don't have to know what a "slithy tove" is to know that "slithy" is an adjective that describes the noun "tove." *grins*

*gyres and gimbles about*

Re: Brillig!!!

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

True, true, they are clearly parts of speech and they convey the message they are intended to.

I wouldn’t be shocked to find “brillig” in the OED even. Then again, it seems Oxford will let almost any ol’ word in these days… *chuckle*