What wild and slithy toves are these,
Beneath the graben jubjub trees?
For, even as I tread this path,
The light it fails, turns to dark.

And thoughts unbidden to my mind,
Leap frightening, startling and unkind.
Of shadows hidden, and unseen,
Of clawed beast, and winged thing.

And, even as I hasten step,
A sound is heard of indrawn breath.
A shuffled foot, or is't mine ear?
I do know not, yet it draws near.

I stumble, fumble, blind from fear.
Break to a run, but still I hear,
That sound that every man doth dread,
Some lurching horror's crunching tread.

I flee and fly 'cross hill and vale,
But after me there comes a wail.
It fills the air with horrid dread,
And echoes deep inside my head.

On my neck I feel its breath,
The fetid stench of rotting death.
Yet, up ahead I see a light,
And run for it with all my might.

I burst, still running, from the trees,
And now I feel my weakened knees.
But fear is gone, and now a thought,
From deep within, compels me 'Stop!'.

The wailing now has ceased to wail,
And on my neck the breath has failed.
In fact, no sound at all is there,
To break the cool and still night air.

No beast comes crashing down the path,
I see no horrors in the dark.
All is quiet. All is still,
As I now stand upon this hill.

Where lie the wild and slithy tove?
Perhaps not in this jubjub grove.
But then, who knows what horrors lurk,
And fear can drive a man beserk.

Mayhaps they live inside the head,
Or haunt the paths men fear to tread.
So when you wander far from home,
Remember, do not walk alone.