Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hood

by Thomas Hood

  Grouse, partridge, hares, she never spares,

  Or pheasants, old or young —

  On widgeon, teal, she makes a meal,

  And yet objects to none: —

  ‘What have I got, it’s full of shot!

  I cannot bear a gun!’

  At pigeon-pie she is not shy,

  Her taste it never shocks,

  Though they should be from Battersea,

  So famous for blue rocks;

  Yet when I bring the very thing

  My marksmanship has won,

  She cries, ‘Lock up that horrid cup,

  I cannot bear a gun!’ —

  Like fool and dunce I got her once

  A box at Drury Lane,

  And by her side I felt a pride

  I ne’er shall feel again:

  To read the bill it made her ill,

  And this excuse she spun,

  ‘Der Freyschütz, oh, seven shots! you know,

  I cannot bear a gun!’

  Yet at a hint from Major Flint,

  Her very hands she rubs, —

  And quickly drest in all her best,

  Is off to Wormwood Scrubbs.

  The whole review she sits it through,

  With noise enough to stun,

  And never winks, or even thinks,

  ‘I cannot bear a gun!’

  She thus may blind the Major’s mind

  In mock-heroic strife,

  But let a bout at war break out,

  And where’s the soldier’s wife,

  To take his kit and march a bit

  Beneath a broiling sun?

  Or will she cry, ‘My dear, good-bye,

  I cannot bear a gun!’

  If thus she doats on army coats,

  And regimental cuffs,

  The yeomanry might surely be

  Secure from her rebuffs;

  But when I don my trappings on,

  To follow Captain Dunn, —

  My carbine’s gleam provokes a scream,

  ‘I cannot bear a gun!’

  It can’t be minced, I’m quite convinced,

  All girls are full of flam,

  Their feelings fine, and feminine,

  Are nothing else but sham;

  On all their tricks I need not fix,

  I’ll only mention one,

  How many a Miss will tell you this,

  ‘I cannot bear a gun!’ —

  TRIMMER’S EXERCISE FOR THE USE OF CHILDREN

  Here, come, Master Timothy Todd,

  Before we have done you’ll look grimmer,

  You’ve been spelling some time for the rod,

  And your jacket shall know I’m a

  Trimmer.

  You don’t know your A from your B,

  So backward you are in your Primer:

  Don’t kneel — you shall go on my knee,

  For I’ll have you to know I’m a

  Trimmer.

  This morning you hinder’d the cook,

  By melting your dumps in the skimmer; —

  Instead of attending your book, —

  But I’ll have you to know I’m a

  Trimmer.

  To-day, too, you went to the pond,

  And bathed, though you are not a swimmer;

  And with parents so doting and fond —

  But I’ll have you to know I’m a

  Trimmer.

  After dinner you went to the wine,

  And help’d yourself yes, to a brimmer;

  You couldn’t walk straight in a line,

  But I’ll make you to know I’m a

  Trimmer.

  You kick little Tomkins about,

  Because he is slighter and slimmer;

  Are the weak to be thump’d by the stout?

  But I’ll have you to know I’m a

  Trimmer.

  Then you have a sly pilfering trick,

  Your school-fellows call you the nimmer, —

  I will cut to the bone if you kick!

  For I’ll have you to know I’m a

  Trimmer.

  To-day you made game at my back,

  You think that my eyes are grown dimmer, —

  But I’ve watch’d you, I’ve got a sly knack!

  And I’ll have you to know I’m a

  Trimmer.

  Don’t think that my temper is hot,

  It’s never beyond a slow simmer;

  I’ll teach you to call me Dame Trot,

  But I’ll have you to know I’m a

  Trimmer.

  Miss Edgeworth, or Mrs. Chapone,

  Might melt to behold your tears glimmer;

  Mrs. Barbauld would let you alone,

  But I’ll have you to know I’m a

  Trimmer.

  THE FOX AND THE HEN

  A FABLE

  ‘Speaking within compass, as to fabulousness I prefer Southcote to Northcote.’ — Pigrogromitus.

  One day, or night, no matter where or when,

  Sly Reynard, like a foot-pad, laid his pad

  Right on the body of a speckled Hen,

  Determined upon taking all she had;

  And like a very bibber at his bottle,

  Began to draw the claret from her throttle;

  Of course it put her in a pretty pucker,

  And with a scream as high

  As she could cry,

  She call’d for help — she had enough of sucker.

  Dame Partlet’s scream

  Waked, luckily, the house-dog from his dream,

  And, with a savage growl

  In answer to the fowl,

  He bounded forth against the prowling sinner,

  And, uninvited, came to the Fox Dinner.

  Sly Reynard, heedful of the coming doom,

  Thought, self-deceived,

  He should not be perceived,

  Hiding his brush within a neighbouring broom; —

  But quite unconscious of a Poacher’s snare,

  And caught in copper noose,

  And looking like a goose,

  Found that his fate had ‘hung upon a hare;’

  His tricks and turns were render’d of no use to him,

  And, worst of all, he saw old surly Tray

  Coming to play

  Tray-Deuce with him.

  Tray, an old Mastiff bred at Dunstable,

  Under his Master, a most special constable, —

  Instead of killing Reynard in a fury,

  Seized him for legal trial by a Jury;

  But Juries — Æsop was a sheriff then —

  Consisted of twelve Brutes and not of Men.

  But first the Elephant sat on the body —

  I mean the Hen — and proved that she was dead,

  To the veriest fool’s head

  Of the Booby and the Noddy.

  And then the Owl was call’d — for, mark,

  The Owl can witness in the dark.

  To make the evidence more plain,

  The Lynx connected all the chain.

  In short there was no quirk or quibble

  At which a legal Rat could nibble;

  The Culprit was as far beyond hope’s bounds,

  As if the Jury had been packed — of hounds.

  Reynard, however, at the utmost nick,

  Is seldom quite devoid of shift and trick;

  Accordingly our cunning Fox,

  Through certain influence, obscurely channel’d, —

  A friendlv Camel got into the box,

  When ‘gainst his life the Jury was impanel’d.

  Now, in the Silly Isles such is the law,

  If Jurors should withdraw,

  They are to have no eating and no drinking,

  Till all are starved into one way of thinking.

  Thus Reynard’s Jurors, who could not agree,

  Were lock’d up strictly, without bit or mummock,

  Till every Beast that only had one stomach,

  Bent to the Camel, who was blest with three.

&nb
sp; To do them justice, they debated

  From four till ten, while dinner waited,

  When thirst and hunger got the upper,

  And each inclined to mercy, and hot supper:

  ‘Not guilty’ was the word, and Master Fox

  Was freed to murder other hens and cocks.

  MORAL.

  What moral greets us by this tale’s assistance

  But that the Solon is a merry Solon,

  Who makes the full stop of a Man’s existence

  Depend upon a Colon? —

  THE COMET AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE

  ‘I cannot fill up a blank better than with a short history of this selfsame Starling.’ — Sterne’s Sentimental Journey.

  Amongst professors of astronomy,

  Adepts in the celestial economy,

  The name of H* * * * * *l’s very often cited;

  And justly so, for he is hand and glove

  With ev’ry bright intelligence above;

  Indeed, it was his custom so to stop,

  Watching the stars upon the house’s top,

  That once upon a time he got beknighted.

  In his observatory thus coquetting

  With Venus — or with Juno gone astray,

  All sublunary matters quite forgetting

  In his flirtations with the winking stars,

  Acting the spy — it might be upon Mars —

  A new André;

  Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping,

  At Dian sleeping;

  Or ogling through his glass

  Some heavenly lass

  Tripping with pails along the Milky Way;

  Or looking at that Wain of Charles the

  Martyr’s:

  Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky,

  When lo! a something with a tail of flame

  Made him exclaim,

  ‘My stars!’ — he always puts that stress on my —

  ‘My stars and garters!’

  ‘A comet, sure as I’m alive!

  A noble one as I should wish to view;

  It can’t be Halley’s though, that is not due

  Till eighteen thirty-five.

  Magnificent! — how fine his fiery trail!

  Zounds! ’tis a pity, though, he comes unsought —

  Unask’d — unreckon’d, — in no human thought —

  He ought — he ought — he ought

  To have been caught

  With scientific salt upon his tail!’

  ‘I look’d no more for it, I do declare,

  Than the Great Bear!

  As sure as Tycho Brahe is dead,

  It really enter’d in my head,

  No more than Berenice’s Hair! —

  Thus musing, Heaven’s Grand Inquisitor

  Sat gazing on the uninvited visitor

  Till John, the serving-man, came to the upper

  Regions, with ‘Please your Honour, come to supper.’

  ‘Supper! good John, to-night I shall not sup

  Except on that phenomenon — look up!’

  ‘Not sup!’ cried John, thinking with consternation

  That supping on a star must be starvation,

  Or ev’n to batten —

  On Ignes Fatui would never fatten,

  His visage seem’d to say, — that very odd is, —

  But still his master the same tune ran on,

  ‘I can’t come down, — go to the parlour, John,

  And say I’m supping with the heavenly bodies.’

  ‘The heavenly bodies!’ echoed John, ‘Ahem!’

  His mind still full of famishing alarms,

  ‘‘Zooks, if your Honour sups with them,

  In helping, somebody must make long arms!’

  He thought his master’s stomach was in danger,

  But still in the same tone replied the

  Knight, —

  ‘Go down, John, go, I have no appetite,

  Say I’m engaged with a celestial stranger.’ —

  Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs,

  ‘Wouldn’t the stranger take a bit downstairs?’

  ‘No,’ said the master, smiling, and nowonder,

  At such a blunder,

  ‘The stranger is not quite the thing you think,

  He wants no meat or drink,

  And one may doubt quite reasonably whether

  He has a mouth, —

  Seeing his head and tail are join’d together,

  Behold him, — there he is, John, in the South.’

  John look’d up with his portentous eyes,

  Each rolling like a marble in its socket,

  At last the fiery tad-pole spies,

  And, full of Vauxhall reminiscence, cries,

  ‘A rare good rocket!’

  ‘A what! A rocket, John! Far from it!

  What you behold, John, is a. comet;

  One of those most eccentric things

  That in all ages

  Have puzzled sages

  And frighten’d kings;

  With fear of change that flaming meteor, John,

  Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range’ —

  ‘Do he?’ cried John,

  ‘Well, let him flare on,

  I haven’t got no sovereigns to change!’

  LOVE AND LUNACY

  The Moon — who does not love the silver moon,

  In all her fantasies and all her phases?

  Whether full-orb’d in the nocturnal noon,

  Shining in all the dewdrops on the daisies,

  To light the tripping Fairies in their mazes,

  Whilst stars are winking at the pranks of Puck;

  Or huge and red, as on brown sheaves she gazes;

  Or new and thin, when coin is turn’d for luck; —

  Who will not say that Dian is a Duck?

  But, oh! how tender, beautiful, and sweet, —

  When in her silent round, serene, and clear,

  By assignation loving fancies meet,

  To recompense the pangs of absence drear!

  So Ellen, dreaming of Lorenzo, dear,

  But distant from the city mapp’d by Mogg,

  Still saw his image in that silver sphere,

  Plain as the Man with lantern, bush, and dog,

  That used to set our ancestors a-gog.

  And so she told him in a pretty letter,

  That came to hand exactly as Saint Meg’s

  Was striking ten — eleven had been better;

  For then he might have eaten six more eggs,

  And both of the bedevill’d turkey-legs,

  With relishes from East, West, North, and South,

  Draining, beside, the teapot to the dregs;

  Whereas a man, whose heart is in his mouth,

  Is rather spoilt for hunger and for drouth.

  And so the kidneys, broiling hot, were wasted;

  The brawn — it never enter’d in his thought;

  The grated Parmesan remain’d untasted; —

  The potted shrimps were left as they were bought,

  The capelings stood as merely good for nought,

  The German sausage did not tempt him better,

  Whilst Juno, licking her poor lips, was taught

  There’s neither bone nor skin about a letter,

  Gristle, nor scalp, that one can give a setter.

  Heav’n bless the man who first devised a mail!

  Heav’n bless that public pile which stands concealing

  The Goldsmith’s front with such a solid veil!

  Heav’n bless the Master, and Sir Francis Freeling, —

  The drags, the nags, the leading or the wheeling,

  The whips, the guards, the horns, the coats of scarlet,

  The boxes, bags, those evening bells a-pealing!

  Heav’n bless, in short, each posting thing, and varlet,

  That helps a Werter to a sigh from Charlotte.

  So felt Lorenzo as he oped the sheet,

  Where,
first, the darling signature he kiss’d,

  And then, recurring to its contents sweet

  With thirsty eyes, a phrase I must enlist,

  He gulp’d the words to hasten to their gist; —

  In mortal ecstacy his soul was bound —

  When, lo! with features all at once a-twist,

  He gave a whistle, wild enough in sound

  To summon Faustus’s Infernal Hound!

  Alas! what little miffs and tiffs in love,

  A snubbish word, or pouting look mistaken,

  Will loosen screws with sweethearts hand and glove,

  Oh! love, rock firm when chimney-pots were shaken,

  A pettish breath will into huffs awaken,

  To spit like hump-back’d cats, and snarling Towzers!

  Till hearts are wreck’d and founder’d, and forsaken,

  As ships go to Old Davy, Lord knows how, sirs,

  While heav’n is blue enough for Dutchmen’s trowsers!

  ‘The moon’s at full, love, and I think of you’ —

  Who would have thought that such a kind P.S.

  Could make a man turn white, then red, then blue,

  Then black, and knit his eyebrows and compress

  His teeth, as if about to effervesce

  Like certain people when they lose at whist!

  So look’d the chafed Lorenzo, ne’ertheless,

  And, in a trice, the paper he had kiss’d

  Was crumpled like a snowball in his fist!

  Ah! had he been less versed in scientifics,

  More ignorant, in short, of what is what;

  He ne’er had flared up in such calorifics;

  But he would seek societies, and trot

  To Clubs — Mechanics’ Institutes — and got

  With Birkbeck — Bartley — Combe — George Robins — Rennie,

  And other lecturing men. And had he not

  That work, of weekly parts, which sells so many, —

  The Copper-bottomed Magazine — or ‘Penny’?

  But, of all learned pools whereon, or in,

  Men dive like dabchicks, or like swallows skim,

  Some hardly damp’d, some wetted to the skin,

  Some drown’d like pigs when they attempt to swim,