Consilia interdum stetit egnia[021] mente revolvens: 
          At gravis in densa fronde susuffrus[022] erat,
        Spiculaque[023] ex oculis jacientis flammea, tulscam
          Per silvam venit burbur?[024] Iabrochii!

Vorpali, semel atque iterum collectus in ictum,
Persnicuit gladio persnacuitque puer: 
Deinde galumphatus, spernens informe cadaver,
Horrendum monstri rettulit ipse caput.

Victor Iabrochii, spoliis insignis opimis,
Rursus in amplexus, o radiose, meos! 
O frabiose dies!  CALLO clamateque CALLA! 
Vix potuit laetus chorticulare pater.

Coesper erat:  tunc lubriciles ultravia circum
Urgebant gyros gimbiculosque tophi;
Moestenui visae borogovides ire meatu;
Et profugi gemitus exgrabuere rathae.

A.A.V.

JABBERWOCKY.

        ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
          Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
        All mimsy were the borogroves,
          And the mome raths outgrabe.

        “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! 
          The jaws that bite, the claws that scratch! 
        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 borogroves,
          And the mome raths outgrabe.

The story, as originally written, contained thirteen chapters, but the published book consisted of twelve only.  The omitted chapter introduced a wasp, in the character of a judge or barrister, I suppose, since Mr. Tenniel wrote that “a wasp in a wig is altogether beyond the appliances of art.”  Apart from difficulties of illustration, the “wasp” chapter was not considered to be up to the level of the rest of the book, and this was probably the principal reason of its being left out.

“It is a curious fact,” wrote Mr. Tenniel some years later, when replying to a request of Lewis Carroll’s that he would illustrate another of his books, “that with ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ the faculty of making drawings for book illustration departed from me, and, notwithstanding all sorts of tempting inducements, I have done nothing in that direction since.”