is lost unto Whitby,
And her name is Matilda,
Which my heart it was smit by; Tho’ I take the Goliah,
I learn to my sorrow
That ‘it won’t,’ said the crier,
‘Be off till to-morrow.’
“She called me her ‘Neddy,’
(Tho’ there mayn’t be much in it,) And I should have been ready,
If she’d waited a minute;
I was following behind her
When, if you recollect, I
Merely ran back to find a
Gold pin for my neck-tie.
“Rich dresser of suet!
Prime hand at a sausage!
I have lost thee, I rue it,
And my fare for the passage!
Perhaps she thinks it funny,
Aboard of the Hilda,
But I’ve lost purse and money,
And thee, oh, my ‘Tilda!’
His pin of gold the youth undid
And in his waistcoat-pocket hid,
Then gently folded hand in hand,
And dropped asleep upon the sand.
She’s All my Fancy Painted Him
[This affecting fragment was found in MS. among the papers of the well-known author of “Was it You or I?” a tragedy, and the two popular novels, “Sister and Son,” and “The Niece’s Legacy, or the Grateful Grandfather.”]
She’s all my fancy painted him
(I make no idle boast);
If he or you had lost a limb,
Which would have suffered most?
He said that you had been to her,
And seen me here before;
But, in another character,
She was the same of yore.
There was not one that spoke to us,
Of all that thronged the street: So he sadly got into a ’bus,
And pattered with his feet.
They sent him word I had not gone
(We know it to be true);
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?
They gave her one, they gave me two,
They gave us three or more;
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.
If I or she should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.
It seemed to me that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle, that came between
Him, and ourselves, and it.
Don’t let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.
Photography Extraordinary
The Milk-and-Water School Alas! she would not hear my prayer!
Yet it were rash to tear my hair;
Disfigured, I should be less fair.
She was unwise, I may say blind;
Once she was lovingly inclined;
Some circumstance has changed her mind.
The Strong-Minded or Matter-of-Fact School
Well! so my offer was no go!
She might do worse, I told her so;
She was a fool to answer “No.”
However, things are as they stood;
Nor would I have her if I could,
For there are plenty more as good.
The Spasmodic or German School
Firebrands and daggers! hope hath fled!
To atoms dash the doubly dead!
My brain is fire—my heart is lead!
Her soul is flint, and what am I?
Scorch’d by her fierce, relentless eye,
Nothingness is my destiny!
Lays of Mystery, Imagination, and Humour
No.1: The Palace of Humbug
I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And each damp thing that creeps and crawls
Went wobble-wobble on the walls.
Faint odours of departed cheese,
Blown on the dank, unwholesome breeze,
Awoke the never-ending sneeze.
Strange pictures decked the arras drear,
Strange characters of woe and fear,
The humbugs of the social sphere.
One showed a vain and noisy prig,
That shouted empty words and big
At him that nodded in a wig.
And one, a dotard grim and gray,
Who wasteth childhood’s happy day
In work more profitless than play.
Whose icy breast no pity warms,
Whose little victims sit in swarms,
And slowly sob on lower forms.
And one, a green thyme-honoured Bank,
Where flowers are growing wild and rank,
Like weeds that fringe a poisoned tank.
All birds of evil omen there
Flood with rich Notes the tainted air,
The witless wanderer to snare.