“She is gone by the Hilda,
She 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,’ says 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 suit!
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.
B. B.[3]
[3] What these initials stand for the editor has not the vaguest
notion. It was not until nearly two years after the publication of the
above verses that Mr. Dodgson used the pseudonym of “Lewis Carroll,”
which he appended to his poem, “The Path of Roses,” published in “The
Train” in May, 1856.