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Further nonsense verse and prose

Chapter 4: CORONACH
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About This Book

A varied collection of short pieces that mixes nonsense verse, limericks, parodies, acrostics, playful correspondence, and brief comic prose. Poems range from brisk, absurd ditties to more measured, mildly melancholic lyrics, while prose items include mock-serious essays on manners, whimsical imaginings, and light mathematical or logical pastiches. The pieces rely on inventive wordplay, paradox, and satire of social convention, shifting between ear-catching rhythms and conversational wit. Arranged as a miscellany, the work emphasizes formal experimentation and a childlike playfulness tempered by occasional gentle reflection.

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,
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.