Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hood

by Thomas Hood

  Of fever; and most frightful things have haunted in my dreams —

  Hyenas — cats — blood-loving bats — and apes with hateful stare, —

  Pernicious snakes, and shaggy bulls — the lion, and she-bear —

  Strong enemies, with Judas looks, of treachery and spite —

  Detested features, hardly dimm’d and banish’d by the light!

  Pale-sheeted ghosts, with gory locks, upstarting from their tombs —

  All phantasies and images that flit in midnight glooms —

  Hags, goblins, demons, lemures, have made me all aghast, —

  But nothing like that GRIMLY ONE who stood beside the mast!

  His cheek was black — his brow was black — his eyes and hair as dark;

  His hand was black, and where it touch’d, it left a sable mark;

  His throat was black, his vest the same, and when I look’d beneath,

  His breast was black — all, all, was black, except his grinning teeth.

  His sooty crew were like in hue, as black as Afric slaves!

  Oh, horror! e’en the ship was black that plough’d the inky waves!

  “Alas!” I cried, “for love of truth and blessed mercy’s sake,

  Where am I? in what dreadful ship? upon what dreadful lake?”

  “What shape is that, so very grim, and black as any coal?

  It is Mahound, the Evil One, and he has gain’d my soul!

  Oh, mother dear! my tender nurse! dear meadows that beguil’d

  My happy days, when I was yet a little sinless child, —

  My mother dear — my native fields, I never more shall see:

  I’m sailing in the Devil’s Ship, upon the Devil’s Sea!”

  Loud laugh’d that SABLE MARINER, and loudly in return

  His sooty crew sent forth a laugh that rang from stem to stern —

  A dozen pair of grimly cheeks were crumpled on the nonce —

  As many sets of grinning teeth came shining out at once:

  A dozen gloomy shapes at once enjoy’d the merry fit,

  With shriek and yell, and oaths as well, like Demons of the Pit.

  They crow’d their fill, and then the Chief made answer for the whole; —

  “Our skins,” said he, “are black, ye see, because we carry coal;

  You’ll find your mother sure enough, and see your native fields —

  For this here ship has pick’d you up — the Mary Ann of Shields!”

  A TRUE STORY.

  Of all our pains, since man was curst,

  I mean of body, not the mental,

  To name the worst, among the worst,

  The dental sure is transcendental;

  Some bit of masticating bone,

  That ought to help to clear a shelf,

  But lets its proper work alone,

  And only seems to gnaw itself;

  In fact, of any grave attack

  On victual there is little danger,

  ’Tis so like coming to the rack,

  As well as going to the manger.

  Old Hunks — it seemed a fit retort

  Of justice on his grinding ways —

  Possessed a grinder of the sort,

  That troubled all his latter days.

  The best of friends fall out, and so

  His teeth had done some years ago,

  Save some old stumps with ragged root,

  And they took turn about to shoot;

  If he drank any chilly liquor,

  They made it quite a point to throb;

  But if he warmed it on the hob,

  Why then they only twitched the quicker.

  One tooth — I wonder such a tooth

  Had never killed him in his youth —

  One tooth he had with many fangs,

  That shot at once as many pangs,

  It had a universal sting;

  One touch of that ecstatic stump

  Could jerk his limbs and make him jump,

  Just like a puppet on a string;

  And what was worse than all, it had

  A way of making others bad.

  There is, as many know, a knack,

  With certain farming undertakers,

  And this same tooth pursued their track,

  By adding achers still to achers!

  One way there is, that has been judged

  A certain cure, but Hunks was loth

  To pay the fee, and quite begrudged

  To lose his tooth and money both;

  In fact, a dentist and the wheel

  Of Fortune are a kindred cast,

  For after all is drawn, you feel

  It’s paying for a blank at last;

  So Hunks went on from week to week,

  And kept his torment in his cheek;

  Oh! how it sometimes set him rocking,

  With that perpetual gnaw — gnaw — gnaw,

  His moans and groans were truly shocking,

  And loud, — altho’ he held his jaw.

  Many a tug he gave his gum

  And tooth, but still it would not come,

  Tho’ tied to string by some firm thing,

  He could not draw it, do his best,

  By draw’rs, altho’ he tried a chest.

  At last, but after much debating,

  He joined a score of mouths in waiting,

  Like his, to have their troubles out.

  Sad sight it was to look about

  At twenty faces making faces,

  With many a rampant trick and antic,

  For all were very horrid cases,

  And made their owners nearly frantic.

  A little wicket now and then

  Took one of these unhappy men,

  And out again the victim rushed,

  While eyes and mouth together gushed;

  At last arrived our hero’s turn,

  Who plunged his hands in both his pockets,

  And down he sat, prepared to learn

  How teeth are charmed to quit their sockets.

  Those who have felt such operations,

  Alone can guess the sort of ache,

  When his old tooth began to break

  The thread of old associations;

  It touched a string in every part,

  It had so many tender ties;

  One cord seemed wrenching at his heart,

  And two were tugging at his eyes;

  “Bone of his bone,” he felt, of course,

  As husbands do in such divorce;

  At last the fangs gave way a little,

  Hunks gave his head a backward jerk,

  And lo! the cause of all this work,

  Went — where it used to send his victual!

  The monstrous pain of this proceeding

  Had not so numbed his miser wit,

  But in this slip he saw a hit

  To save, at least, his purse from bleeding;

  So when the dentist sought his fees,

  Quoth Hunks, “Let’s finish, if you please,”

  “How, finish! why, it’s out!”— “Oh no —

  ’Tis you are out, to argue so;

  I’m none of your before-hand tippers.

  My tooth is in my head no doubt,

  But, as you say you pulled it out,

  Of course it’s there — between your nippers,”

  “Zounds, sir! d’ye think I’d sell the truth

  To get a fee? no, wretch, I scorn it!”

  But Hunks still asked to see the tooth,

  And swore by gum! he had not drawn it.

  His end obtained, he took his leave,

  A secret chuckle in his sleeve;

  The joke was worthy to produce one,

  To think, by favor of his wit

  How well a dentist had been bit

  By one old stump, and that a loose one!

  The thing was worth a laugh, but mirth

  Is still the frailest thing on earth:

  Alas! how often when a joke

  Seems in our s
leeve, and safe enough,

  There comes some unexpected stroke

  And hangs a weeper on the cuff!

  Hunks had not whistled half a mile,

  When, planted right against a stile,

  There stood his foeman, Mike Mahoney,

  A vagrant reaper, Irish born,

  That helped to reap our miser’s corn,

  But had not helped to reap his money,

  A fact that Hunks remembered quickly;

  His whistle all at once was quelled,

  And when he saw how Michael held

  His sickle, he felt rather sickly.

  Nine souls in ten, with half his fright,

  Would soon have paid the bill at sight,

  But misers (let observers watch it)

  Will never part with their delight

  Till well demanded by a hatchet —

  They live hard — and they die to match it.

  Thus Hunks prepared for Mike’s attacking,

  Resolved not yet to pay the debt,

  But let him take it out in hacking;

  However, Mike began to stickle

  In words before he used the sickle;

  But mercy was not long attendant:

  From words at last he took to blows,

  And aimed a cut at Hunks’s nose,

  That made it what some folks are not —

  A member very independent.

  Heaven knows how far this cruel trick

  Might still have led, but for a tramper

  That came in danger’s very nick,

  To put Mahoney to the scamper.

  But still compassion met a damper;

  There lay the severed nose, alas!

  Beside the daisies on the grass,

  “Wee, crimson-tipt” as well as they,

  According to the poet’s lay:

  And there stood Hunks, no sight for laughter.

  Away went Hodge to get assistance,

  With nose in hand, which Hunks ran after,

  But somewhat at unusual distance.

  In many a little country place

  It is a very common case

  To have but one residing doctor,

  Whose practice rather seems to be

  No practice, but a rule of three,

  Physician — surgeon — drug-decoctor;

  Thus Hunks was forced to go once more

  Where he had ta’en his to t’ before.

  His mere name made the learned man hot, —

  “What! Hunks again within my door!

  I’ll pull his nose”; quoth Hunks, “You cannot.”

  The doctor looked and saw the case

  Plain as the nose not on his face.

  “Oh! hum — ha — yes — I understand.”

  But then arose a long demur,

  For not a finger would he stir

  Till he was paid his fee in hand;

  That matter settled, there they were,

  With Hunks well strapped upon his chair.

  The opening of a surgeon’s job —

  His tools, a chestful or a drawerful —

  Are always something very awful,

  And give the heart the strangest throb;

  But never patient in his funks

  Looked half so like a ghost as Hunks,

  Or surgeon half so like a devil

  Prepared for some infernal revel:

  His huge black eye kept rolling, rolling,

  Just like a bolus in a box:

  His fury seemed above controlling,

  He bellowed like a hunted ox:

  “Now, swindling wretch, I’ll show thee how

  We treat such cheating knaves as thou;

  Oh! sweet is this revenge to sup;

  I have thee by the nose — it’s now

  My turn — and I will turn it up.”

  Guess how the miser liked the scurvy

  And cruel way of venting passion;

  The snubbing folks in this new fashion

  Seemed quite to turn him topsy-turvy;

  He uttered prayers, and groans, and curses,

  For things had often gone amiss

  And wrong with him before, but this

  Would be the worst of all reverses!

  In fancy he beheld his snout

  Turned upwards like a pitcher’s spout;

  There was another grievance yet,

  And fancy did not fail to show it,

  That he must throw a summerset,

  Or stand upon his head to blow it.

  And was there then no argument

  To change the doctor’s vile intent,

  And move his pity? — yes, in truth,

  And that was — paying for the tooth.

  “Zounds! pay for such a stump! I’d rather—”

  But here the menace went no farther,

  For with his other ways of pinching,

  Hunks had a miser’s love of snuff.

  A recollection strong enough

  To cause a very serious flinching;

  In short, he paid and had the feature

  Replaced as it was meant by nature;

  For tho’ by this ’twas cold to handle

  (No corpse’s could have felt so horrid),

  And white just like an naked candle,

  The doctor deemed and proved it too,

  That noses from the nose will do

  As well as noses from the forehead;

  So, fixed by din of rag and lint,

  The part was bandaged up and muffled.

  The chair unfastened, Hunks rose,

  And shuffled off, for once unshuffled;

  And as he went, these words he snuffled —

  “Well, this is ‘paying thro’ the nose.’”

  TIM TURPIN.

  A PATHETIC BALLAD.

  Tim Turpin he was gravel blind,

  And ne’er had seen the skies:

  For Mature, when his head was made,

  Forgot to dot his eyes.

  So, like a Christmas pedagogue,

  Poor Tim was forc’d to do —

  Look out for pupils, for he had

  A vacancy for two.

  There’s some have specs to help their sight

  Of objects dim and small:

  But Tim had specks within his eyes,

  And could not see at all.

  Now Tim he woo’d a servant-maid,

  And took her to his arms;

  For he, like Pyramus, had cast

  A wall-eye on her charms.

  By day she led him up and down

  Where’er he wished to jog,

  A happy wife, altho’ she led

  The life of any dog.

  But just when Tim had liv’d a month

  In honey with his wife,

  A surgeon ope’d his Milton eyes,

  Like oysters, with a knife.

  But when his eyes were open’d thus,

  He wish’d them dark again:

  For when he look’d upon his wife,

  He saw her very plain.

  Her face was bad, her figure worse,

  He couldn’t bear to eat:

  For she was any thing but like

  A Grace before his meat.

  Tim he was a feeling man:

  For when his sight was thick,

  It made him feel for every thing —

  But that was with a stick.

  So with a cudgel in his hand —

  It was not light or slim —

  He knocked at his wife’s head until

  It open’d unto him.

  And when the corpse was stiff and cold,

  He took his slaughter’d spouse,

  And laid her in a heap with all

  The ashes of her house.

  But like a wicked murderer,

  He lived in constant fear

  From day to day, and so he cut

  His throat from ear to ear.

  The neighbors fetch’d a doctor in:

  Said he, this wound I dread

 
Can hardly be sew’d up — his life

  Is hanging on a thread.

  But when another week was gone,

  He gave him stronger hope —

  Instead of hanging on a thread,

  Of hanging on a rope.

  Ah! when he hid his bloody work

  In ashes round about,

  How little he supposed the truth

  Would soon be sifted out.

  But when the parish dustman came,

  His rubbish to withdraw,

  He found more dust within the heap

  Than he contracted for!

  A dozen men to try the fact,

  Were sworn that very day;

  But tho’ they all were jurors, yet

  No conjurors were they.

  Said Tim unto those jurymen,

  You need not waste your breath,

  For I confess myself at once

  The author of her death.

  And, oh! when I reflect upon

  The blood that I have spilt,

  Just like a button is my soul,

  Inscrib’d with double guilt!

  Then turning round his head again,

  He saw before his eyes

  A great judge, and a little judge,

  The judges of a-size!

  The great judge took his judgment cap,

  And put it on his head,

  And sentenc’d Tim by law to hang,

  ‘Till he was three times dead.

  So he was tried, and he was hung

  (Fit punishment for such)

  On Horsham-drop, and none can say

  It was a drop too much.

  THE MONKEY-MARTYR.

  A FABLE.

  “God help thee, said I, but I’ll let thee out, cost what it will: so I turned

  about the cage to get to the door.” — STERNE.

  ’Tis strange, what awkward figures and odd capers

  Folks cut, who seek their doctrine from the papers;

  But there are many shallow politicians,

  Who take their bias from bewilder’d journals —

  Turn state-physicians,

  And make themselves fools’-caps of the diurnals.

  One of this kind, not human, but a monkey,

  Had read himself at last to this sour creed —

  That he was nothing but Oppression’s flunkey,