The Dinner Party

(After Lewis Carroll's 'Jabberwocky')

The swullocking welkin showed nary a gleen,
brumous above the brae,
as out to the ceilidh the droshkies drove,
wabbling down the way.

They brought their cossets, their squamous skinks,
their sheldrakes in the quills,
while ’round the dome the twinspur jounced
beneath the jalousies’ sills.

To the katalox table the raucous klatch came,
zechins glistering in the glow,
whilst the fifes and the crwths did descant bright
and the tenoroon quavered below.

They noshed their mulligan and champed on beeves
from the abattoir down the wynd,
and from their costrels they sipped anisette,
sacchariferous and fine.

In the midst of the blether a pawky lad came
in a capote and frothy white frill,
and from the epergne he plucked a silvery salver
holding lovage, hyssop, and dill.

“Wisha!” they yauped, “wisha, a yegg!”
and flew to a strepitous fuss,
while like a slithery elver the larcener slid
into the deepening dusk.

The muster adjourned, they hied to their wains
and their mokes piebald and roan,
while above their heads the louring murk cleared,
and the cepheids guided them home.