Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hood
Page 53
Yet not of any Corsair bark in search —
The jutting lodging-house of Mrs. Lindo,
‘The Cheapest House in Town’ of Todd and Sturch,
The private house of Reverend Doctor Birch,
The public-house, closed nightly at eleven,
And then that house of prayer, the parish church,
Some roofs, and chimneys, and a glimpse of heaven,
Made up the whole look-out of Number Seven.
Yet something in the prospect so absorbed her, —
She seemed quite drowned and dozing in a dream;
As if her own belov’d full moon still orb’d her,
Lulling her fancy in some lunar scheme,
With lost Lorenzo, may be, for its theme —
Yet when Lorenzo touch’d her on the shoulder,
She started up with an abortive scream,
As if some midnight ghost, from regions colder,
Had come within his bony arms to fold her.
‘Lorenzo!’ — Ellen!’ — then came ‘Sir!’ and ‘Madam!’
They tried to speak, but hammer’d at each word, —
As if it were a flint for great Mac Adam;
Such broken English never else was heard,
For like an aspen leaf each nerve was stirr’d,
A chilly tremor thrill’d them through and through,
Their efforts to be stiff were quite absurd,
They shook like jellies made without a due
And proper share of common joiner’s glue.
‘Ellen! I’m come — to bid you — fare — farewell’
They thus began to fight their verbal duel;
‘Since some more hap — hap — happy man must dwell’
‘Alas — Loren — Lorenzo! — cru — cru — cruel!’
For so they split their words like grits for gruel.
At last the Lover, as he long had plann’d,
Drew out that once inestimable jewel,
Her portrait, which was erst so fondly scann’d,
And thrust poor Ellen’s face into her hand.
‘There — take it, Madam — take it back I crave,
The face of one — but I must now forget her,
Bestow it on whatever hapless slave
Your art has last enticed into your fetter —
And there are your epistles — there! each letter!
I wish no record of your vow’s infractions,
Send them to South — or Children — you had better —
They will be novelties — rare benefactions
To shine in Philosophical Transactions!
‘Take them — pray take them — I resign them quite!
And there’s the glove you gave me leave to steal —
And there’s the handkerchief, so pure and white
Once sanctified by tears, when Miss O’Neill —
But no — you did not — cannot — do not feel
A Juliet’s faith, that time could only harden!
Fool that I was, in my mistaken zeal!
I should have led you, — by your leave and pardon —
To Bartley’s Orrery, not Covent Garden!
‘And here’s the birth-day ring — nor man nor devil
Should once have torn it from my living hand,
Perchance ‘twill look as well on Mr. Neville;
And that — and that is all — and now I stand
Absolved of each dissever’d tie and band —
And so farewell, till Time’s eternal sickle
Shall reap our lives; in this, or foreign land
Some other may be found for truth to stickle
Almost as fair — and not so false and fickle!’
And there he ceased: as truly it was time,
For of the various themes that left his mouth,
One half surpass’d her intellectual climb:
She knew no more than the old Hill of Howth
About that ‘Children of a larger growth,’
Who notes proceedings of the F. R. S.’s;
Kit North, was just as strange to her as South,
Except the south the weathercock expresses,
Nay, Bartley’s Orrery defied her guesses.
Howbeit some notion of his jealous drift
She gather’d from the simple outward fact,
That her own lap contained each slighted gift;
Though quite unconscious of his cause to act
So like Othello, with his face unblack’d;
‘Alas!’ she sobbed, ‘your cruel course I see,
These faded charms no longer can attract;
Your fancy palls, and you would wander free,
And lay your own apostacy on me!
‘I, false! — unjust Lorenzo! — and to you!
Oh, all ye holy gospels that incline
The soul to truth, bear witness I am true!
By all that lives, of earthly or divine —
So long as this poor throbbing heart is mine —
I false! — the world shall change its course as soon!
True as the streamlet to the stars that shine —
True as the dial to the sun at noon,
True as the tide to “yonder blessed moon”!’
And as she spoke, she pointed through the window,
Somewhere above the houses’ distant tops,
Betwixt the chimney-pots of Mrs. Lindo,
And Todd and Sturch’s cheapest of all shops
For ribbons, laces, muslins, silks, and fops; —
Meanwhile, as she upraised her face so Grecian,
And eyes suffused with scintillating drops,
Lorenzo looked, too, o’er the blinds Venetian,
To see the sphere so troubled with repletion.
‘The Moon!’ he cried, and an electric spasm —
Seem’d all at once his features to distort,
And fix’d his mouth, a dumb and gaping chasm —
His faculties benumb’d and all amort —
At last his voice came, of most shrilly sort,
Just like a sea-gull’s wheeling round a rock —
‘Speak! — Ellen! — is your sight indeed so short!
The Moon! — Brute! savage that I am, and block!
The Moon! (O, ye Romantics, what a shock!)
Why, that’s the new Illuminated Clock!’
THOSE EVENING BELLS
‘I’D BE A PARODY’
Those Evening Bells, those Evening Bells,
How many a tale their music tells,
Of Yorkshire cakes and crumpets prime,
And letters only just in time! —
The Muffin-boy has pass’d away,
The Postman gone — and I must pay,
For down below Deaf Mary dwells,
And does not hear those Evening Bells.
And so ‘twill be when she is gone,
That tuneful peal will still ring on,
And other maids with timely yells
Forget to stay those Evening Bells.
LINES TO A FRIEND AT COBHAM
’Tis pleasant, when we’ve absent friends,
Sometimes to hob and nob ‘em
With Memory’s glass — at such a pass,
Remember me at Cobham!
Have pigs you will, and sometimes kill,
But if you sigh and sob ‘em,
And cannot eat your home-grown meat,
Remember me at Cobham!
Of hen and cock, you’ll have a stock,
And death will oft unthrob ‘em, —
A country chick is good to pick —
Remember me at Cobham!
Some orchard trees of course you’ll lease,
And boys will sometimes rob ‘em,
A friend (you know) before a foe —
Remember me at Cobham!
You’ll sometimes have wax-lighted rooms,
And friends of course to mob ‘em;
Should you be short of such a sort,
Re
member me at Cobham! —
THE QUAKERS’ CONVERSAZIONE
I
SONNET BY R. M.
How sweet thus clad, in Autumn s mellow Tone,
With serious Eye, the russet Scene to view!
No Verdure decks the Forest, save alone
The sad green Holly, and the olive Yew.
The Skies, no longer of a garish Blue,
Subdued to Dove-like Tints, and soft as Wool,
Reflected show their slaty Shades anew
In the drab Waters of the clayey Pool.
Meanwhile you Cottage Maiden wends to School,
In Garb of Chocolate so neatly drest, —
And Bonnet puce, fit object for the Tool,
And chasten’d Pigments, of our Brother West;
Yea, all is silent, sober, calm, and cool,
Save gaudy Robin with his crimson Breast.
II
LINES ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE
BY DORCAS DOVE
And is it thus ye welcome Peace!
From Mouths of forty-pounding Bores?
Oh cease, exploding Cannons, cease!
Lest Peace, affrighted, shun our shores!
Not so the quiet Queen should come;
But like a Nurse to still our Fears,
With Shoes of List, demurely dumb,
And Wool or Cotton in her Ears!
She asks for no triumphal Arch; —
No steeples for their ropy Tongues;
Down, Drumsticks, down, She needs no March,
Or blasted Trumps from brazen Lungs.
She wants no Noise of Mobbing Throats
To tell that She is drawing nigh:
Why this Parade of scarlet Coats,
When War has closed his bloodshot Eye?
Returning to Domestic Loves,
When war has ceased with all its Ills,
Captains should come like sucking Doves, —
With Olive Branches in their Bills.
No need there is of vulgar Shout,
Bells, Cannons, Trumpets, Fife, and Drum,
And Soldiers marching all about,
To let Us know that Peace is come.
Oh mild should be the Signs and meek,
Sweet Peace’s Advent to proclaim!
Silence her noiseless Foot should speak,
And Echo should repeat the same.
Lo! where the Soldier walks, alas!
With Scars received on foreign Grounds; —
Shall we consume in coloured Glass
The Oil that should be pour’d in Wounds?
The bleeding Gaps of War to close,
Will whizzing Rocket-Flight avail?
Will Squibs enliven Orphans’ Woes?
Or Crackers cheer the Widow’s Tale?
THE LAMENT OF TOBY, THE LEARNED PIG
‘A little learning is a dangerous thing.’ — Pope.
O heavy day! oh day of woe!
To misery a poster,
Why was I ever farrow’d — why
Not spitted for a roaster?
In this world, pigs, as well as men,
Must dance to fortune’s fiddlings,
But must I give the classics up,
For barley-meal and middlings?
Of what avail that I could spell
And read, just like my betters,
If I must come to this at last,
To litters, not to letters?
O, why are pigs made scholars of?
It baffles my discerning,
What griskins, fry, and chitterlings
Can have to do with learning.
Alas! my learning once drew cash,
But public fame’s unstable,
So I must turn a pig again,
And fatten for the table.
To leave my literary line
My eyes get red and leaky;
But Giblett doesn’t want me blue,
But red and white, and streaky.
Old Mullins used to cultivate
My learning like a gard’ner;
But Giblett only thinks of lard,
And not of Doctor Lardner.
He does not care about my brain
The value of two coppers, —
All that he thinks about my head
Is, how I’m off for choppers.
Of all my literary kin
A farewell must be taken.
Goodbye to the poetic Hogg!
The philosophic Bacon!
Day after day my lessons fade,
My intellect gets muddy;
A trough I have, and not a desk,
A sty — and not a study! —
Another little month, and then
My progress ends, like Bunyan’s;
The seven sages that I loved
Will be chopp’d up with onions!
Then over head and ears in brine
They’ll souse me, like a salmon,
My mathematics turn’d to brawn,
My logic into gammon.
My Hebrew will all retrograde,
Now I’m put up to fatten,
My Greek, it will all go to grease;
The Dogs will have my Latin!
Farewell to Oxford! — and to Bliss!
To Milman, Crowe, and Glossop, —
I now must be content with chats,
Instead of learned gossip!
Farewell to ‘Town!’ farewell to ‘Gown!’
I’ve quite outgrown the latter, —
Instead of Trencher-cap my head
Will soon be in a platter! —
O why did I at Brazen-Nose
Rout up the roots of knowledge?
A butcher that can’t read will kill
A pig that’s been to college!
For sorrow I could stick myself,
But conscience is a dasher;
A thing that would be rash in man
In me would be a rasher!
One thing I ask — when I am dead.
And past the Stygian ditches —
And that is, let my schoolmaster
Have one of my two flitches:
’Twas he who taught my letters so
I ne’er mistook or miss’d ‘em,
Simply by ringing at the nose,
According to Bell’s system.
TO A BAD RIDER
I
Why, Mr. Rider, why
Your nag so ill indorse, man?
To make observers cry,
You’re mounted, but no horseman?
II
With elbows out so far,
This thought you can’t debar me —
Though no Dragoon — Hussar —
You’re surely of the army!
III
I hope to turn M.P.
You have not any notion, —
So awkward you would be
At ‘seconding a motion!’
MY SON AND HEIR
I
My mother bids me bind my heir,
But not the trade where I should bind;
To place a boy — the how and where —
It is the plague of parent-kind!
II
She does not hint the slightest plan,
Nor what indentures to indorse;
Whether to bind him to a man, —
Or, like Mazeppa, to a horse.
III
What line to choose of likely rise,
To something in the Stocks at last, —
‘Fast bind, fast find,’ the proverb cries,
I find I cannot bind so fast!
IV
A Statesman James can never he;
A Tailor? — there I only learn
His chief concern is cloth, and he
Is always cutting his concern.
V
A Seedsman? — I’d not have him so;
A Grocer’s plum might disappoint;
A Butcher? — no, not that — although
I hear ‘the times are out of joint!’
VI
Like Pedlars, each has such a pack;
A merchant selling coals? — we see
The buyer send to cellar back.
VII
A Hardware dealer? — that might please,
But if his trade’s foundation leans
On spikes and nails, he won’t have ease
When he retires upon his means.
VIII
A Soldier? — there he has not nerves,
A Sailor seldom lays up pelf: —
A Baker? — no, a baker serves,
His customer before himself.
IX
Dresser of hair? — that’s not the sort;
A Joiner jars with his desire —
A Churchman? — James is very short,
And cannot to a church aspire.
X
A Lawyer? — that’s a hardish term!
A Publisher might give him ease,
If he could into Longman’s firm,
Just plunge at once ‘in medias Rees.’
XI
A shop for pot, and pan, and cup,
Such brittle Stock I can’t advise;
A Builder running houses up,
Their gains are stories — may be lies!
XII
A Coppersmith I can’t endure —
Nor petty Usher A, B, C-ing;
A Publican, no father sure
Would be the author of his being!
XIII
A Paper-maker? — come he must
To rags before he sells a sheet —