The packing of her luggage was a most stupendous job,
She'd the miscellaneous wardrobe of the highest sort of nob,
New trousseau, plate, and furniture, and presents from her friends,
And Cockle's pills and raspberry jam, and various odds and ends.
There were eighty zinc-lined cases and portmanteaus full a score,
Of band and bonnet boxes at least some fifty more,
Of carpet-bags three dozen most plethorically crammed,
With nigh-forgotten articles in one wild chaos jammed.
Our Venus had a transit out particularly quick,
A glorious transit mundi, but without the usual sic (k);
Till one fine day she gazed upon the far-famed, Austral strand.
One eye upon her luggage, and one eye upon the land.
The vessel berthed beside the pier; Matilda's future lord,
The "Honourable Dobbins," stepped jauntily on board;
He clasped the maiden to his breast, nor heeded that close by
The melancholy Jobbins stood with sad reproachful eye.
"Come, come, my love!" says Dobbins, "let's get your things ashore;
I have a cab in waiting here to take them to my store."
"A cab!" cried she—"twice twenty cabs would not for me suffice;
Behold my things!" He started, as though stung by cockatrice.
"That lofty mountain yonder, which high its head erects,
That Alp of packing cases—are those, dear, your effects?"
"Of course they are, beloved, for keeping house with you,
Enough to furnish us complete, and everything quite new!"
He staggered as if hearing news of pestilence or dearth,
Then gasped in low and anxious tones, "And what's the whole lot worth?"
She thought that his emotion spoke of joy that knew no bounds,
And whispered gaily in his ear, "Some forty thousand pounds!"
He bit his lips, he ground his teeth, he tore out hunks of hair,
He looked the full embodiment of desperate despair;
Then with a shriek of agony, the hideous truth found vent,
"There's ad valorem on the lot of ninety-five per cent.!
"My new amended Tariff comes in force this very day,
I little dreamt that you and I should be the first to pay;
Besides, I haven't got the cash! oh dear, how bad I feel!"
The maiden smiled a scornful smile and turned upon her heel.
The miserable Dobbins gave a second piercing shriek,
Then leaped into the briny flood, and stayed there for a week;
Though Jobbins tried to find him hard, but failed, with these remarks,
"He always was too deep for me—besides, there might be sharks."