Cyberwocky

(With Apologies to Lewis Carroll)

'Twas e-mail, and the ftp
Did route and telnet to the node.
All rlogin to Xterms free
To let gopher download.

``Beware the Internet, my son!
The posts that spam, the speech that's free!
Beware the Netscape cache, and shun
The AOL mail id!''

He took his HP mouse in hand.
Long time a higher bandwidth sought --
And wished had he for his old PC
A faster modem bought.

And, as that wistful thought he gripped,
The Internet, with bait of flame,
Ran applets through the Javascript,
And mailbombed as it came!

The war he waged! As on each page
The HP mouse he double-clicked!
And 'twas absurd, the hype he'd heard
'Bout sites that he had picked.

"And, hast thou surfed the Internet?
Come link my page, my newbie bud!
O Lycos night! Yahoo! Excite!"
He messaged on his MUD.

'Twas e-mail, and the ftp
Did route and telnet to the node.
All rlogin to Xterms free
To let gopher download.

by Mike ``Hammerwocky'' Hammond

(First appeared in Volume 71, Issue 4 of mathNEWS, the University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics student newsletter/humour publication.