Thomas Hood- Collected Poetical Works
Page 13
To go by Pickford’s van.
I wish you’d go to Mr. P.
And save me such a ride;
I don’t half like the outside place,
They’ve took for my inside.
The cock it crows — I must be gone!
My William, we must part!
But I’ll be yours in death, altho’
Sir Astley has my heart.
Don’t go to weep upon my grave,
And think that there I be;
They haven’t left an atom there
Of my anatomie.
THE PROGRESS OF ART.
Oh happy time! — Art’s early days!
When o’er each deed, with sweet self-praise,
Narcissus-like I hung!
When great Rembrandt but little seemed,
And such Old Masters all were deemed
As nothing to the young!
Some scratchy strokes — abrupt and few,
So easily and swift I drew,
Sufficed for my design;
My sketchy, superficial hand
Drew solids at a dash — and spanned
A surface with a line.
Not long my eye was thus content,
But grew more critical — my bent
Essayed a higher walk;
I copied leaden eyes in lead —
Rheumatic hands in white and red,
And gouty feet — in chalk.
Anon my studious art for days
Kept making faces — happy phrase,
For faces such as mine!
Accomplished in the details then,
I left the minor parts of men,
And drew the form divine.
Old Gods and Heroes — Trojan — Greek,
Figures — long after the antique,
Great Ajax justly feared;
Hectors, of whom at night I dreamt,
And Nestor, fringed enough to tempt
Bird-nesters to his beard.
A Bacchus, leering on a bowl,
A Pallas that out-stared her owl,
A Vulcan — very lame;
A Dian stuck about with stars,
With my right hand I murdered Mars —
(One Williams did the same).
But tired of this dry work at last,
Crayon and chalk aside I cast,
And gave my brush a drink!
Dipping— “as when a painter dips
In gloom of earthquake and eclipse,” —
That is — in Indian ink.
Oh then, what black Mont Blancs arose,
Crested with soot, and not with snows:
What clouds of dingy hue!
In spite of what the bard has penned,
I fear the distance did not “lend
Enchantment to the view.”
Not Radcliffe’s brush did e’er design
Black Forests half so black as mine,
Or lakes so like a pall;
The Chinese cake dispersed a ray
Of darkness, like the light of Day
And Martin over all.
Yet urchin pride sustained me still,
I gazed on all with right good will,
And spread the dingy tint;
“No holy Luke helped me to paint,
The devil surely, not a Saint,
Had any finger in’t!”
But colors came! — like morning light,
With gorgeous hues, displacing night,
Or Spring’s enlivened scene:
At once the sable shades withdrew;
My skies got very, very blue;
My trees extremely green.
And washed by my cosmetic brush,
How Beauty’s cheek began to blush;
With lock of auburn stain —
(Not Goldsmith’s Auburn) — nut-brown hair,
That made her loveliest of the fair;
Not “loveliest of the plain!”
Her lips were of vermilion hue:
Love in her eyes, and Prussian blue,
Set all my heart in flame!
A young Pygmalion, I adored
The maids I made — but time was stored
With evil — and it came!
Perspective dawned — and soon I saw
My houses stand against its law;
And “keeping” all unkept!
My beauties were no longer things
For love and fond imaginings;
But horrors to be wept!
Ah! why did knowledge ope my eyes?
Why did I get more artist wise?
It only serves to hint,
What grave defects and wants are mine;
That I’m no Hilton in design —
In nature no De Wint!
Thrice happy time! — Art’s early days!
When o’er each deed, with sweet self-praise,
Narcissus-like I hung!
When great Rembrandt but little seemed,
And such Old Masters all were deemed
As nothing to the young!
A LEGEND OF NAVARRE.
‘TWAS in the reign of Lewis, call’d the Great,
As one may read on his triumphal arches,
The thing befel I’m going to relate,
In course of one of those “pomposo” marches
He lov’d to make, like any gorgeous Persian,
Partly for war, and partly for diversion.
Some wag had it put in the royal brain
To drop a visit at an old chateau,
Quite unexpected, with his courtly train;
The monarch lik’d it, — but it happened so,
That Death had got before them by a post,
And they were “reckoning without their host,”
Who died exactly as a child should die,
Without a groan or a convulsive breath
Closing without one pang his quiet eye,
Sliding composedly from sleep — to death;
A corpse so placid ne’er adorn’d a bed,
He had seem’d not quite — but only rather dead.
All night the widow’d Baroness contriv’d
To shed a widow’s tears; but on the morrow
Some news of such unusual sort arriv’d,
There came strange alteration in her sorrow;
From mouth to mouth it pass’d, one common
humming
Throughout the house — the King! the King is coming.
The Baroness, with all her soul and heart,
A loyal woman, (now called ultra royal,)
Soon thrust all funeral concerns apart,
And only thought about a banquet royal;
In short, by aid of earnest preparation,
The visit quite dismiss’d the visitation.
And, spite of all her grief for the ex-mate,
There was a secret hope she could not smother,
That some one, early, might replace “the late” —
It was too soon to think about another;
Yet let her minutes of despair be reckon’d
Against her hope, which was but for a second.
She almost thought that being thus bereft
Just then, was one of time’s propitious touches;
A thread in such a nick so nick’d, it left
Free opportunity to be a duchess;
Thus all her care was only to look pleasant,
But as for tears — she dropp’d them — for the present.
Her household, as good servants ought to try,
Look’d like their lady — anything but sad,
And giggled even that they might not cry,
To damp fine company; in truth they had
No time to mourn, thro’ choking turkeys’ throttles,
Scouring old laces, and reviewing bottles.
Oh what a hubbub for the house of woe!
All, resolute to one irresolution,
Kept tearing, swearing, plunging to and fro
Just like another French mob revolution
.
There lay the corpse that could not stir a muscle,
But all the rest seem’d Chaos in a hustle.
The Monarch came: oh! who could ever guess
The Baroness had been so late a weeper!
The kingly grace and more than graciousness,
Buried the poor defunct some fathoms deeper. —
Could he have had a glance — alas poor Being!
Seeing would certainly have led to D — ing.
For casting round about her eyes to find
Some one to whom her chattels to endorse.
The comfortable dame at last inclin’d
To choose the cheerful Master of the Horse;
He was so gay, — so tender, — the complete
Nice man, — the sweetest of the monarch’s suite.
He saw at once and enter’d in the lists —
Glance unto glance made amorous replies;
They talk’d together like two egotists,
In conversation all made up of eyes:
No couple ever got so right consort-ish
Within two hours — a courtship rather shortish.
At last, some sleepy, some by wine opprest,
The courtly company began “nid noddin;”
The King first sought his chamber, and the rest
Instanter followed by the course he trod in.
I shall not please the scandalous by showing
The order, or disorder of their going.
The old Chateau, before that night, had never
Held half so many underneath its roof,
It task’d the Baroness’s best endeavour,
And put her best contrivance to the proof,
To give them chambers up and down the stairs,
In twos and threes, by singles, and by pairs
She had just lodging for the whole — yet barely;
And some, that were both broad of back and tall,
Lay on spare beds that served them very sparely:
However, there were beds enough for all;
But living bodies occupied so many
She could not let the dead one take up any.
The act was, certainly, not over decent:
Some small respect, e’en after death, she ow’d him.
Considering his death had been so recent:
However, by command, her servants stow’d him,
(I am asham’d to think how he was slubber’d,)
Stuck bolt upright within a corner cupboard!
And there he slept as soundly as a post,
With no more pillow than an oaken shelf,
Just like a kind accommodating host,
Taking all inconvenience on himself.
None else slept in that room, except a stranger,
A decent man, a sort of Forest Ranger,
Who, whether he had gone too soon to bed,
Or dreamt himself into an appetite,
Howbeit he took a longing to be fed,
About the hungry middle of the night;
So getting forth, he sought some scrap to eat,
Hopeful of some stray pasty, or cold meat.
The casual glances of the midnight moon,
Bright’ning some antique ornaments of brass,
Guided his gropings to that corner soon,
Just where it stood, the coffin-safe, alas!
He tried the door — then shook it — and in course
Of time it open’d to a little force.
He put one hand in, and began to grope;
The place was very deep and quite as dark as,
The middle night; — when lo! beyond his hope,
He felt a something cold, in fact, the carcase;
Right overjoy’d, he laugh’d, and blest his luck
At finding, as he thought, this haunch of buck!
Then striding back for his couteau de chasse,
Determined on a little midnight lunching,
He came again and prob’d about the mass,
As if to find the fattest bit for munching;
Not meaning wastefully to cut it all up,
But only to abstract a little collop.
But just as he had struck one greedy stroke,
His hand fell down quite powerless and weak;
For when he cut the haunch it plainly spoke
As haunch of ven’son never ought to speak;
No wonder that his hand could go no further —
Whose could? — to carve cold meat that bellow’d, “
murther!’
Down came the Body with a bounce, and down
The Ranger sprang, a staircase at a spring,
And bawl’d enough to waken up a town;
Some thought that they were murder’d, some, the
King,
And, like Macduff, did nothing for a season,
But stand upon the spot and bellow, “Treason!”
A hundred nightcaps gather’d in a mob,
Torches drew torches, swords brought swords
together,
It seem’d so dark and perilous a job;
The Baroness came trembling like a feather
Just in the rear, as pallid as a corse,
Leaning against the Master of the Horse.
A dozen of the bravest up the stair,
Well lighted and well watch’d, began to clamber
They sought the door — they found it — they were there,
A dozen heads went poking in the chamber
And lo! with one hand planted on his hurt,
There stood the body bleeding thro’ his shirt, —
No passive corse — but like a duellist
Just smarting from a scratch — in fierce position,
One hand advanced, and ready to resist;
In fact, the Baron doff’d the apparition,
Swearing those oaths the French delight in most.
And for the second time “gave up the ghost!”
A living miracle! — for why? — the knife
That cuts so many off from grave gray hairs,
Had only carv’d him kindly into life:
How soon it chang’d the posture of affairs!
The difference one person more or less
Will make in families, is past all guess.
There stood the Baroness — no widow yet;
Here stood the Baron— “in the body” still;
There stood the Horses’ Master in a pet,
Choking with disappointment’s bitter pill,
To see the hope of his reversion fail,
Like that of riding on a donkey’s tail.
The Baron liv’d, ’twas nothing but a trance:
The lady died— ’twas nothing but a death:
The cupboard-cut serv’d only to enhance
This postscript to the old Baronial breath:
He soon forgave, for the revival’s sake,
A little chop intended for a steak!
THE DEMON-SHIP.
’Twas off the Wash — the sun went down — the sea look’d black and grim,
For stormy clouds, with murky fleece, were mustering at the brim;
Titanic shades! enormous gloom! — as if the solid night
Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light!
It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye
With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky!
Down went my-helm — close reef’d — the tack held freely in my hand —
With ballast snug — I put about, and scudded for the land.
Loud hiss’d the sea beneath her lee — my little boat flew fast,
But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast.
Lord! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail!
What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of hail!
What darksome caverns yawn’d before! what jagged steeps behind!
Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the wind.
; Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase,
But where it sank another rose and galloped in its place;
As black as night — they turned to white, and cast against the cloud
A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturned a sailor’s shroud: —
Still flew my boat; alas! alas! her course was nearly run!
Behold yon fatal billow rise — ten billows heap’d in one!
With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling, fast,
As if the scooping sea contain’d one only wave at last!
Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift pursuing grave;
It seem’d as though some cloud had turned its hugeness to a wave!
Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face —
I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base!
I saw its alpine hoary head impending over mine!
Another pulse — and down it rush’d — an avalanche of brine!
Brief pause had I, on God to cry, or think of wife and home;
The waters clos’d — and when I shriek’d, I shriek’d below the foam!
Beyond that rush I have no hint of any after deed —
For I was tossing on the waste, as senseless as a weed.
* * * * *
“Where am I? in the breathing world, or in the world of death?”
With sharp and sudden pang I drew another birth of breath;
My eyes drank in a doubtful light, my ears a doubtful sound —
And was that ship a real ship whose tackle seem’d around?
A moon, as if the earthly moon, was shining up aloft;
But were those beams the very beams that I had seen so oft?
A face, that mock’d the human face, before me watch’d alone;
But were those eyes the eyes of man that look’d against my own?
Oh! never may the moon again disclose me such a sight
As met my gaze, when first I look’d, on that accursed night!
I’ve seen a thousand horrid shapes begot of fierce extremes