Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hood
Page 66
His weapon lies in piece,
Oh, it would warm them in a trice,
If they could only have a spice
Of his old mace in Greece!
The fam’d Rinaldo lies a-cold,
And Tancred too, and Godfrey bold,
That scal’d the holy wall!
No Saracen meets Paladin,
We hear of no great Saladin,
But only grow the small.
Our Cressys too have dwindled since
To penny things — at our Black Prince
Historic pens would scoff —
The only one we moderns had
Was nothing but a Sandwich lad,
And measles took him off! —
Where are those old and feudal clans,
Their pikes, and bills, and partizans,
Their hauberks — jerkins — buffs?
A battle was a battle then,
A breathing piece of work — but men
Fight now — with powder puffs!
The curtal-axe is out of date!
The good old cross-bow bends to Fate
’Tis gone — the archer’s craft!
No tough arm bends the springing yew,
And jolly draymen ride, in lieu
Of Death, upon the shaft. —
The spear — the gallant tilter’s pride —
The rusty spear is laid aside,
Oh spits now domineer! —
The coat of mail is left alone,
And where is all chain-armour gone?
Go ask at Brighton Pier.
We fight in ropes and not in lists,
Bestowing hand-cuffs with our fists,
A low and vulgar art! —
No mounted man is overthrown —
A tilt! — it is a thing unknown —
Except upon a cart.
Methinks I see the bounding barb,
Clad like his chief in steely garb,
For warding steel’s appliance! —
Methinks I hear the trumpet stir!
’Tis but the guard to Exeter,
That bugles the ‘Defiance!’
In cavils when will cavaliers
Set ringing helmets by the ears,
And scatter plumes about?
Or blood — if they are in the vein?
That tap will never run again —
Alas the Casque is out!
No iron-crackling now is scor’d
By dint of battle-axe or sword,
To find a vital place —
Though certain Doctors still pretend
Awhile, before they kill a friend,
To labour through his case.
Farewell, then, ancient men of might!
Crusader! errant squire, and knight!
Our coats and customs soften,
To rise would only make ye weep —
Sleep on, in rusty iron sleep,
As in a safety-coffin!
ODE
IMITATED FROM HORACE
Oh! well may poets make a fuss
In summer time, and sigh ‘O rus!’
Of London pleasures sick:
My heart is all at pant to rest
In greenwood shades, my eyes detest
This endless meal of brick!
What joy have I in June’s return?
My feet are parch’d — my eyeballs burn,
I scent no flowery gust; —
But faint the flagging zephyr springs,
With dry Macadam on its wings,
And turns me ‘dust to dust.’
My sun his daily course renews
Due east, but with no Eastern dews;
The path is dry and hot!
His setting shows more tamely still,
He sinks behind no purple hill,
But down a chimney’s pot!
Oh! but to hear the milk-maid blithe,
Or early mower whet his scythe
The dewy meads among! —
My grass is of that sort — alas! —
That makes no hay, call’d sparrowgrass
By folks of vulgar tongue!
Oh! but to smell the woodbine sweet!
I think of cowslip-cups — but meet
With very vile rebuffs!
For meadow buds, I get a whiff
Of Cheshire cheese, or only sniff
The turtle made at Cuff’s. —
How tenderly Rousseau review’d
His periwinkles! — mine are stew’d!
My rose blooms on a gown!
I hunt in vain for eglantine,
And find my blue-bell on the sign
That marks the Bell and Crown!
Where are ye, birds! that blithely wing
From tree to tree, and gaily sing
Or mourn in thickets deep?
My cuckoo has some ware to sell,
The watchman is my Philomel,
My blackbird is a sweep!
Where are ye, linnet! lark! and thrush!
That perch on leafy bough and bush,
And tune the various song?
Two hurdy-gurdists, and a poor
Street-Handel grinding at my door,
Are all my ‘tuneful throng.’
Where are ye, early-purling streams,
Whose waves reflect the morning beams —
And colours of the skies?
My rills are only puddle-drains
From shambles — or reflect the stains
Of calimanco-dyes.
Sweet are the little brooks that run
O’er pebbles glancing in the sun,
Singing in soothing tones: —
Not thus the city streamlets flow;
They make no music as they go,
Tho’ never ‘off the stones.’
Where are ye, pastoral pretty sheep,
That wont to bleat, and frisk, and leap
Beside your woolly dams?
Alas! instead of harmless crooks,
My Corydons use iron hooks,
And skin — not shear — the lambs.
The pipe whereon, in olden day,
Th’ Arcadian herdsman us’d to play
Sweetly — here soundeth not;
But merely breathes unwelcome fumes,
Meanwhile the city boor consumes
The rank weed. ‘piping hot.’
All rural things are vilely mock’d,
On every hand the sense is shock’d
With objects hard to bear:
Shades, vernal shades! — where wine is sold!
And for a turfy bank, behold
An Ingram’s rustic chair!
Where are ye, London meads and bow’rs,
And gardens redolent of flow’rs
Wherein the zephyr wons?
Alas! Moor Fields are fields no more!
See Hatton’s Garden brick’d all o’er;
And that bare wood — St. John’s.
No pastoral scene procures me peace;
I hold no Leasowes in my lease,
No cot set round with trees:
No sheep-white hill my dwelling flanks
And omnium furnishes my banks
With brokers — not with bees.
Oh! well may poets make a fuss
In summer time, and sigh ‘O rus!’
Of city pleasures sick:
My heart is all at pant to rest
In greenwood shades, my eyes detest
This endless meal of brick!
STANZAS TO TOM WOODGATE, OF HASTINGS
I
Tom! — are you still within this land
Of livers — still on Hastings’ sand,
Or roaming on the waves,
Or has some billow o’er you rolled,
Jealous that earth should lap so bold
A seaman in her graves?
II
On land the rush-light lives of men
Go out but slowly; nine in ten,
By tedious long decline,
Not so the jolly sailor sinks,
>
Who founders in the wave, and drinks
The apoplectic brine!
III
Ay, while I write, mayhap your head
Is sleeping on an oyster-bed,
I hope ’tis far from truth!
With periwinkle eyes; — your bone
Beset with mussels, not your own,
And corals at your tooth!
IV
Still does the Chance pursue the chance
The main affords — the Aidant dance
In safety on the tide?
Still flies that sign of my good-will
A little bunting thing — but still
To thee a flag of pride?
V
Does that hard, honest hand now clasp
The tiller in its careful grasp —
With every summer breeze
When ladies sail, in lady-fear —
Or, tug the oar, a gondolier
On smooth Macadam seas? —
VI
Or are you where the flounders keep,
Some dozen briny fathoms deep,
Where sands and shells abound —
With some old Triton on your chest
And twelve grave mermen for a ‘quest,
To find that you are — drowned?
VII
Swift is the wave, and apt to bring
A sudden doom — perchance I sing
A mere funereal strain; —
You have endured the utter strife —
And are — the same in death or life,
A good man in the main!
VIII
Oh, no — I hope the old brown eye
Still watches ebb and flood and sky;
That still the old brown shoes
Are sucking brine up — pumps indeed!
Your tooth still full of ocean weed,
Or Indian — which you choose.
IX
I like you, Tom! and in these lays
Give honest worth its honest praise,
No puff at honour’s cost;
For though you met these words of mine,
All letter-learning was a line
You, somehow, never crossed!
X
Mayhap, we ne’er shall meet again,
Except on that Pacific main,
Beyond this planet’s brink; —
Yet as we erst have braved the weather,
Still we may float awhile together,
As comrades on this ink! —
XI
Many a scudding gale we’ve had
Together, and, my gallant lad,
Some perils we have passed;
When huge and black the wave careered,
And oft the giant surge appeared
The master of our mast: —
XII
’Twas thy example taught me how
To climb the billow’s hoary brow,
Or cleave the raging heap —
To bound along the ocean wild,
With danger only as a child,
The waters rocked to sleep.
XIII
Oh, who can tell that brave delight,
To see the hissing wave in might,
Come rampant like a snake!
To leap his horrid crest, and feast
One’s eyes upon the briny beast,
Left couchant in the wake!
XIV
The simple shepherd’s love is still
To bask upon a sunny hill,
The herdsman roams the vale —
With both their fancies I agree;
Be mine the swelling, scooping sea,
That is both hill and dale!
XV
I yearn for that brisk spray — I yearn
To feel the wave from stem to stern
Uplift the plunging keel.
That merry step we used to dance,
On hoard the Aidant or the Chance,
The ocean ‘toe and heel.’ —
XVI
I long to feel the steady gale,
That fills the broad distended sail —
The seas on either hand!
My thought, like any hollow shell,
Keeps mocking at my ear the swell
Of waves against the land.
XVII
It is no fable — that old strain
Of sirens! — so the witching main
Is singing — and I sigh!
My heart is all at once inclined
To seaward — and I seem to find
The waters in my eye!
XVIII
Methinks I see the shining beach;
The merry waves, each after each,
Rebounding o’er the flints; —
I spy the grim preventive spy!
The jolly boatmen standing nigh!
The maids in morning chintz!
XIX
And there they float — the sailing craft!
The sail is up — the wind abaft —
The ballast trim and neat.
Alas! ’tis all a dream — a lie!
A printer’s imp is standing by,
To haul my mizen sheet I
XX
My tiller dwindles to a pen —
My craft is that of bookish men —
My sale — let Longman tell!
Adieu the wave! the wind! the spray!
Men — maidens — chintzes — fade away!
Tom Woodgate, fare thee well!
THE LOGICIANS
AN ILLUSTRATION
‘Metaphysics were a large field in which to exercise the weapons logic had put into their hands.’ — Scriblerus.
See here two cavillers,
Would-be unravellers
Of abstruse theory and questions mystical,
In tête-à-tête,
And deep debate,
Wrangling according to forms syllogistical.
Glowing and ruddy
The light streams in upon their deep brown, study,
And settles on our bald logician’s skull:
But still his meditative eye looks dull —
And muddy,
For he is gazing inwardly, like Plato;
But to the world without
And things about,
His eye is blind as that of a potato
In fact, logicians
See but by syllogisms — taste and smell
By propositions;
And never let the common dray-horse senses
Draw inferences.
How wise his brow! how eloquent his nose!
The feature of itself is a negation!
How gravely double is his chin, that shows
Double deliberation;
His scornful lip forestalls the confutation!
O this is he that wisely with a major
And minor proves a greengage is no gauger! —
By help of ergo,
That cheese of sage will make no mite the sager,
And Taurus is no bull to toss up Virgo! —
O this is he that logically tore his
Dog into dogmas — following Aristotle —
Cut up his cat into ten categories,
And cork’d an abstract conjuror in a bottle!
O this is he that disembodied matter,
And proved that incorporeal corporations
Put nothing in no platter,
And for mock turtle only supp’d sensations!
O this is he that palpably decided,
With grave and mathematical precision —
How often atoms may be subdivided
By long division;
O this is he that show’d I is not I,
And made a ghost of personal identity;
Proved ‘Ipse’ absent by an alibi,
And frisking in some other person’s entity;
He sounded all philosophies in truth,
Whether old schemes or only supplemental: —
And had, by virtue of his wisdom-tooth,
A denta
l knowledge of the transcendental! —
The other is a shrewd severer wight,
Sharp argument hath worn him nigh the bone:
For why? he never let dispute alone,
A logical knight-errant,
That wrangled ever, morning, noon and night,
From night to morn: he had no wife apparent
But Barbara Celârent!
Woe unto him he caught in a dilemma,
For on the point of his two fingers full
He took the luckless wight, and gave with them a —
Most deadly toss, like any baited bull.
Woe unto him that ever dared to breathe
A sophism in his angry ear! for that
He took ferociously between his teeth,
And shook it — like a terrier with a rat!
In fact old Controversy ne’er begat
One half so cruel
And dangerous as he, in verbal duel!
No one had ever so complete a fame
As a debater; —
And for art logical his name was greater
Than Dr. Watts’s name! —
Look how they sit together!
Two bitter desperate antagonists,
Licking each other with their tongues, like fists,
Merely to settle whether
This world of ours had ever a beginning —
Whether created,
Vaguely undated,
Or time had any finger in its spinning: —
When, lo! — for they were sitting at the basement —
A hand, like that upon Belshazzar’s wall,
Lets fall
A written paper through the open casement.
‘O foolish wits! (thus runs the document)
To twist your brains into a double knot
On such a barren question! Be content
That there is such a fair and pleasant spot
For your enjoyment as this verdant earth.