The youth at eve had drunk his fill
Where stands the “Royal” on the Hill,
And long his midday stroll had made
On the so-called “Marine Parade”—
(Meant, I presume, for seamen brave,
Whose “march is on the mountain wave”—
’Twere just the bathing-place for him
Who stays on land till he can swim—)
Yes, he had strayed into the town,
And paced each alley up and down,
Where still, so narrow grew the way,
The very houses seemed to say,
Nodding to friends across the street,
“One struggle more and we shall meet.”
And he had scaled that awful stair
That soars from earth to upper air,
Where rich and poor alike must climb,
And walk the treadmill for a time—
That morning he had dressed with care,
And put pomatum in his hair;
He was, the loungers all agreed,
A very heavy swell indeed:
Men thought him, as he swaggered by,
Some scion of nobility,
And never dreamed, so cold his look,
That he had loved—and loved a Cook.
Upon the beach he stood and sighed,
All heedless of the rising tide;
Thus sang he to the listening main,
And soothed his sorrows with the strain:
Coronach.
“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,
Yet I learn to my sorrow,
That ‘it won’t,’ says the crier,
‘Be off till to-morrow.’
“She had called me her ‘Neddy,’
(Though there mayn’t be munch 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 sassage!
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. Whitby. Aug: 1854.