Kublawocky
6 October 2007 21:48People were exclaiming something about frabjous days at Tapestry, and somebody didn't know what we were talking about, so there was more quoting of Jabberwocky, and
milk_toast said "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan", and I said, "No, that's a different poem." and it led to:
Kublawocky
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
Gyre and gimble in the wabe,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
And the mome raths outgrabe
Down to a sunless sea.
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch
With walls and towers were girdled round :
The frumious Bandersnatch!
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree,
Long time the manxome foe he sought,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery,
And stood awhile in thought.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
And burbled as it came!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
He went galumphing back.
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail.
“Come to my arms, my beamish boy!”
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
He chortled in his joy.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
It works remarkably well, I have to say -- it is alternating lines, assuming I can count: I fudged the punctuation here and there, but the only actual cheating is in line 2, to avoid duplicating "did". The main thing I don't like is line 5, because I feel like it very much wants to be the end of a stanza (grammatically, I think it could also start a new sentence there, but that doesn't feel right either), but so does line 4, and that just doesn't work.
And scansion is probably all over the place, but oh well...
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Kublawocky
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
Gyre and gimble in the wabe,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
And the mome raths outgrabe
Down to a sunless sea.
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch
With walls and towers were girdled round :
The frumious Bandersnatch!
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree,
Long time the manxome foe he sought,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery,
And stood awhile in thought.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
And burbled as it came!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
He went galumphing back.
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail.
“Come to my arms, my beamish boy!”
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
He chortled in his joy.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
It works remarkably well, I have to say -- it is alternating lines, assuming I can count: I fudged the punctuation here and there, but the only actual cheating is in line 2, to avoid duplicating "did". The main thing I don't like is line 5, because I feel like it very much wants to be the end of a stanza (grammatically, I think it could also start a new sentence there, but that doesn't feel right either), but so does line 4, and that just doesn't work.
And scansion is probably all over the place, but oh well...