| «Come, listen, people, while I tell you again
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| The five unmistakable marks
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| By which you may know, wherever you go
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| The warranted genuine Snarks
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| «Let us take them in order. |
| The first is the taste
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| Which is meagre and hollow, but crisp:
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| Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist
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| With a flavour of Will-o'-the-wisp
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| «We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days
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| (Seven days to the week I allow)
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| But a true Snark on who, we might lovingly gaze
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| We have never beheld till now!
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| «Its habit of getting up late you’ll agree
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| That it carries too far, when I say
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| That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea
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| And dines on the following day
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| «The third is its slowness in taking a jest
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| Should you happen to venture on one
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| It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
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| And it always looks grave at a pun
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| «We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days
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| (Seven days to the week I allow)
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| But a true Snark on who, we might lovingly gaze
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| We have never beheld till now!
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| «The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines
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| Which it constantly carries about
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| And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes—
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| A sentiment open to doubt
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| «The fifth is ambition. |
| It next will be right
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| To describe each particular batch:
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| Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite
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| From those that have whiskers, and scratch
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| «For, though common Snarks do no manner of harm
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| Yet, I feel it my duty to say
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| Some are Boojums—» The Bellman broke off in alarm
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| For the Baker had fainted away
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| «We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days
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| (Seven days to the week I allow)
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| But a true Snark on who, we might lovingly gaze
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| We have never beheld till now! |