The Hunting of the Snark

1876
Lewis Carroll
The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits
B+

Although this contains some of the vocabulary of "Jabberwocky," I wouldn't call it a children's poem.  Take this recurring stanza:
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care
They pursued it with forks and hope
They threatened its life with a railway-share
They charmed it with smiles and soap.

It's much funnier to me at 43 than it would've been 35 years ago.  The absurdism of the poem, including that several professions are on board the ship and then there's a beaver who knits, feels different than the absurdism of the "Alice" stories.  And of course the modern use of "snark," which urbandictionary.com says is a combination of "snide" and "remark" (making it a Carrollian portmanteau), seems more adult or at least adolescent than childish.  The Snark here is a mythical beast who's pursued in Moby Dick fashion but, alas, turns out to be the dreaded Boojum.  As in Wonderland, there's a ridiculous trial, in this case of a pig who turns out to be dead.

The rhymes are delightful, my favorites being in this stanza:
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply,
"They are merely conventional signs!"

The poem seems to be begging to be read aloud, and I'd love to hear recommendations of good readings on Youtube and elsewhere.