Day 4 Number 4
Bandersnatch
Before reading this one it helps to know your Lewis Carroll:
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.
So, celebrations all round for killing the Jabberwock, but that's all he wrote and there is no further mention of the Jubjub bird or the Bandersnatch, both of them apparently to be feared. So here’s what I think happened:
Bandersnatch
T’was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
The Jabberwock had long been slain
But brillig oft was shafter;
Callooh! Callay! had turned to rain,
And shallow now their laughter.
“Beware the Jubjub bird”, he’d said,
“And shun the Bandersnatch”.
He’d twirdled all this in his head,
Beneath the matthling thatch.
Once more he took his vorpal weapon,
And strayed the tulgey forest when
By ruggith chance he stumbled on
The drubbles of the Jubjub hen.
And crouching still in semberation,
He heard the waffles and faint fruming
Of the poultric abberation,
Roosting in the tulgid glooming.
He drew his steely dagger up,
And dreffly snuck up in the branches,
Underneath the nested Jubjub;
He stabbed right through its pimp and tranches.
Just as in trumpet he descended,
Up galumphed the baldrick cockjub;
But leeking silent by pretending,
Its fate hid in the dreebs and shrub.
Momentarily distracted,
The cockjub took the vorpal blade;
Leeming in and sorely fracted,
On the litter dead was laid.
He gathered up the sturging entrails,
And in glorious umberition,
Rammpled back to cheers and hails,
And celebratory renditions.
“Now hast thou slain the Jubjub bird?
Not one but two? Callay Calloo!
Oh beamish boy where are the words
To adequately champish you?”
“Alas my father, be not gleamish,
I have still the last to catch.
Deep in that tulgey wood to finish
I yet must vanq the Bandersnatch”.
“Beware the Bandersnatch my son,
Its frumiousness is justly reasoned”,
“Dear father, I’ll no longer shun
The Bandersnatch now I am seasoned”.
And so returning by the tracks,
Again unto the wood he trole.
Armed only with a mastiff axe,
Amongst the shrunks and shrub he stole.
So camped he out by the Tum-tum tree,
And passed an unefrousal night;
With false alarums one, two, three,
He clutched his axe and held it tight.
Come morning he was rudely wakened,
By the prungest sounds and smell...
And in a trice his life was taken,
All but his skids were ripped to Hell!
T’was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
The Jabberwock had long been slain
But brillig oft was shafter;
Callooh! Callay! had turned to rain,
And shallow now their laughter.
“Beware the Jubjub bird”, he’d said,
“And shun the Bandersnatch”.
He’d twirdled all this in his head,
Beneath the matthling thatch.
Once more he took his vorpal weapon,
And strayed the tulgey forest when
By ruggith chance he stumbled on
The drubbles of the Jubjub hen.
And crouching still in semberation,
He heard the waffles and faint fruming
Of the poultric abberation,
Roosting in the tulgid glooming.
He drew his steely dagger up,
And dreffly snuck up in the branches,
Underneath the nested Jubjub;
He stabbed right through its pimp and tranches.
Just as in trumpet he descended,
Up galumphed the baldrick cockjub;
But leeking silent by pretending,
Its fate hid in the dreebs and shrub.
Momentarily distracted,
The cockjub took the vorpal blade;
Leeming in and sorely fracted,
On the litter dead was laid.
He gathered up the sturging entrails,
And in glorious umberition,
Rammpled back to cheers and hails,
And celebratory renditions.
“Now hast thou slain the Jubjub bird?
Not one but two? Callay Calloo!
Oh beamish boy where are the words
To adequately champish you?”
“Alas my father, be not gleamish,
I have still the last to catch.
Deep in that tulgey wood to finish
I yet must vanq the Bandersnatch”.
“Beware the Bandersnatch my son,
Its frumiousness is justly reasoned”,
“Dear father, I’ll no longer shun
The Bandersnatch now I am seasoned”.
And so returning by the tracks,
Again unto the wood he trole.
Armed only with a mastiff axe,
Amongst the shrunks and shrub he stole.
So camped he out by the Tum-tum tree,
And passed an unefrousal night;
With false alarums one, two, three,
He clutched his axe and held it tight.
Come morning he was rudely wakened,
By the prungest sounds and smell...
And in a trice his life was taken,
All but his skids were ripped to Hell!
© Stephen Saunders
Well, be that a lesson.
To book Steph'nonsense for a rhyming evening:
bowleyfarm@gmail.com or 01428 741212
Agent / publisher wanted.
No comments:
Post a Comment