Galumphing Through the Week

Final grades are due Wednesday night, so I’m spending each night doing something related to finishing up the semester. Yesterday I graded final exams. Today I graded the final discussion board forums. Tomorrow I’ll do one last check over the grades before I submit them--and I’ll cram too much gear into my external frame pack in preparation for the father-son weekend camping trip, an old summer tradition we’re starting up again after an unfortunate hiatus of a few years.

And in among all of this, the following poem keeps bubbling through my brain. Maybe it’s the Harry Potter influence. Maybe it’s because of my ongoing attempt to memorize it (it shouldn’t be difficult, and yet . . .). Trying to recall the exact order of the stanzas gave me something to do while I was locked out of my apartment last week. In any event, it’s a fun poem, and one I’m certain J.K. Rowling is familiar with. Enjoy.

JABBERWOCKY

Lewis Carroll

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`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.