In December 1854 Carroll graduated at Christ Church and after spending Christmas in Croft he returned to Oxford to resume his studies. In the summer vacation of that year he produced a scrap book magazine called 'Mishmasch', in which appears, for the first time, the four most original lines in English poetry: 'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gire and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.' - Brillig means four o'clock in the afternoon
- slithy means lithe and slim
- Toves are something like badgers and lizards - and corkscrews too!
- To gyre is to go round and round like a gyroscope
- To gimble is to make holes like a gimlet
- A wabe is a grass plot around a sun-dial
- mimsy is flimsy and miserable
- borogrove is a thin shabby-looking bird
- raths are sorts of green pigs
- outgrabing is something between bellowing and whistling
' 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 was not published until its inclusion in 'Through the Looking-Glass' in 1872 in its full form. It is perhaps the most original piece of Carroll's writing and certainly the most famous. Jabberwocky was translated, for the benefit of a much wider audience, into many languages and emerges unmistakably like the original, whatever language is chosen.
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