by Thomas Hood
A Miller? — all his toil is just
To make a meal — he does not eat.
XIV
A Currier? — that by favour goes —
A Chandler gives me great misgiving —
An Undertaker? — one of those
That do not hope to get their living!
XV
Three Golden Balls? — I like them not;
An Auctioneer I never did —
The victim of a slavish lot,
Obliged to do as he is bid! —
XVI
A Broker watching fall and rise
Of Stock? — I’d rather deal in stone, —
A Printer? — there his toils comprise
Another’s work beside his own.
XVII
A Cooper? — neither I nor Jim
Have any taste or turn for that —
A Fish retailer? — but with him,
One part of trade is always flat.
XVIII
A Painter? — long he would not live, —
An Artist’s a precarious craft
In trade Apothecaries give,
But very seldom take, a draught.
XIX
A Glazier? — what if he should smash!
A Crispin he shall not be made —
A Grazier may be losing cash,
Although he drives ‘a roaring trade.’
XX
Well, something must be done! to look
On all my little works around —
James is too big a boy, like book
To leave upon the shelf unbound.
XXI
But what to do? — my temples ache
From evening’s dew till morning’s pearl,
What course to take my boy to make —
O could I make my boy — a girl!
POEMS FROM ‘UP THE RHINE’ (1840)
CONTENTS
TO* * * * *
YE TOURISTS AND TRAVELLERS
TO* * * * * WITH A FLASK OF RHINE WATER
THE ROMANCE OF COLOGNE
EPIGRAM
THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON
OUR LADY’S CHAPEL
LOVE LANGUAGE OF A MERRY YOUNG SOLDIER
TO* * * * *
I gaze upon a city,
A city new and strange;
Down many a wat’ry vista
My fancy takes a range;
From side to side I saunter,
And wonder where I am; —
And can you be in England,
And I at Rotterdam!
Before me lie dark waters,
In broad canals and deep, —
Whereon the silver moonbeams
Sleep, restless in their sleep:
A sort of vulgar Venice
Reminds me where I am, —
Yes, yes, you are in England,
And I’m at Rotterdam.
Tall houses with quaint gables,
Where frequent windows shine,
And quays, that lead to bridges,
And trees in formal line, —
And masts of spicy vessels,
From distant Surinam,
All tell me you’re in England,
And I’m in Rotterdam.
Those sailors, — how outlandish
The face and garb of each!
They deal in foreign gestures,
And use a foreign speech;
A tongue not learned near Isis,
Or studied by the Cam, —
Declares that you’re in England,
But I’m at Rotterdam.
And now across a market
My doubtful way I trace,
Where stands a solemn statue,
The Genius of the place;
And to the great Erasmus
I offer my salaam, —
Who tells me you’re in England,
And I’m at Rotterdam.
The coffee-room is open,
I mingle in its crowd;
The dominoes are rattling,
The hookahs raise a cloud;
A flavour, none of Fearon’s,
That mingles with my dram,
Reminds me you’re in England,
But I’m in Rotterdam.
Then here it goes, a bumper, —
The toast it shall be mine,
In Schiedam, or in Sherry,
Tokay, or Hock of Rhine, —
It well deserves the brightest
Where sunbeam ever swam, —
‘The girl I love in England,’
I drink at Rotterdam!
YE TOURISTS AND TRAVELLERS
Ye Tourists and Travellers, bound to the Rhine,
Provided with passport, that requisite docket,
First listen to one little whisper of mine —
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
Don’t wash or be shaved — go like hairy wild men,
Play dominoes, smoke, wear a cap and smock-frock it,
But if you speak English, or look it, why then
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
You’ll sleep at great inns, in the smallest of beds,
Find charges as apt to mount up as a rocket,
With thirty per cent, as a tax on your heads,
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
You’ll see old Cologne, — not the sweetest of towns, —
Wherever you follow your nose you will shock it;
And you’ll pay your three dollars to look at three crowns,
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
You’ll count Seven Mountains, and see Roland’s Eck,
Hear legends veracious as any by Crockett;
But oh! to the tone of romance what a check,
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
Old Castles you’ll see on the vine-covered hill, —
Fine ruins to rivet the eye in its socket —
Once haunts of Baronial Banditti, and still
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
You’ll stop at Coblenz, with its beautiful views,
But make no long stay with your money to stock it,
Where Jews are all Germans, and Germans all Jews,
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket! —
A Fortress you’ll see, which, as people report,
Can never be captured, save famine should block it —
Ascend Ehrenbreitstein — but that’s not their forte,
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
You’ll see an old man who’ll let off an old gun,
And Lurley, with her hurly-burly, will mock it;
But think that the words of the echo thus run —
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
You’ll gaze on the Rheingau, the soil of the Vine!
Of course you will freely Moselle it and Hock it —
P’raps purchase some pieces of Humbugheim wine —
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
Perchance you will take a frisk off to the Baths —
Where some to their heads hold a pistol and cock it;
But still mind the warning, wherever your paths,
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
And Friendships you’ll swear, most eternal of pacts,
Change rings, and give hair to be put in a locket;
But still, in the most sentimental of acts,
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
In short, if you visit that stream or its shore,
Still keep at your elbow one caution to knock it, —
And where Schinderhannes was Robber of yore, —
Take care of your pocket! — take care of your pocket!
TO* * * * * WITH A FLASK OF RHINE WATER
The old Catholic City was still,
&nbs
p; In the Minster the vespers were sung,
And, re-echoed in cadences shrill,
The last call of the trumpet had rung:
While, across the broad stream of the Rhine,
The full Moon cast a silvery zone;
And, methought, as I gazed on its shipe,
‘Surely that is the Eau de Cologne.’
I inquired not the place of its source,
If it ran to the east or the west;
But my heart took a note of its course
That it flow’d towards Her I love best —
That it flowed towards Her I love best,
Like those wandering thoughts of my own,
And the fancy such sweetness possess’d,
That the Rhine seemed all Eau de Cologne!
THE ROMANCE OF COLOGNE
’Tis even — on the pleasant banks of Rhine
The thrush is singing, and the dove is cooing, —
A Youth and Maiden on the turf recline
Alone — And he is wooing.
Yet wooes in vain, for to the voice of love
No kindly sympathy the Maid discovers,
Though round them both, and in the air above,
The tender Spirit hovers!
Untouch’d by lovely Nature and her laws,
The more he pleads, more coyly she represses;
Her lips denies, and now her hand withdraws,
Rejecting his caresses.
Fair is she as the dreams young Poets weave,
Bright eyes, and dainty lips, and tresses curly;
In outward loveliness a Child of Eve,
But cold as Nymph of Lurley!
The more Love tries her pity to engross,
The more she chills him with a strange hehaviour;
Now tells her beads, now gazes on the Cross
And Image of the Saviour.
Forth goes the Lover with a farewell moan,
As from the presence of a thing inhuman; —
Oh! what unholy spell hath turn’d to stone
The young warm heart of Woman!
* * * * *
’Tis midnight — and the moonbeam, cold and wan,
On bower and river quietly is sleeping,
And o’er the corse of a self-murder’d man
The Maiden fair is weeping.
In vain she looks into his glassy eyes,
No pressure answers to her hand so pressing;
In her fond arms impassively he lies,
Clay-cold to her caressing.
Despairing, stunn’d, by her eternal loss,
She flies to succour that may best beseem her;
But, lo! a frowning Figure veils the Cross,
And hides the blest Redeemer!
With stern right hand it stretches forth a scroll,
Wherein she reads in melancholy letters,
The cruel fatal pact that placed her soul
And her young heart in fetters.
‘Wretch! Sinner! Renegade! to truth and God,
Thy holy faith for human love to barter!’
No more she hears, but on the bloody sod
Sinks, Bigotry’s last Martyr!
And side by side the hapless Lovers lie:
Tell me, harsh Priest! by yonder tragic token,
What part hath God in such a Bond, whereby
Or hearts or vows are broken?
EPIGRAM
I like your German singers well,
But hate them too, and for this reason,
Although they always sing in time,
They often sing quite out of season.
THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON
In the famous old times,
(Famed for chivalrous crimes)
As the legends of Rhineland deliver,
Once there flourish’d a Knight,
Who Sir Otto was hight,
On the banks of the rapid green river!
On the Drachenfels’ crest
He had built a stone nest,
From which he pounced down like a vulture,
And with talons of steel,
Out of every man’s meal
Took a very extortionate multure.
Yet he lived in good fame
With a nobleman’s name,
As ‘Your High-and-Well-Born’ address’d daily —
Tho’ Judge Park in his wig,
Would have deem’d him a prig,
Or a cracksman, if tried at th’ Old Bailey.
It is strange — very strange!
How opinions will change! —
How Antiquity blazons and hallows
Both the man and the crime,
That a less lapse of time
Would commend to the hulks or the gallows!
Thus enthrall’d by Romance,
In a mystified trance,
E’en a young mild, and merciful Woman
Will recall with delight
The wild Keep, and its Knight,
Who was quite as much Tiger as Human!
Now it chanced on a day,
In the sweet month of May,
From his casement Sir Otto was gazing,
With his sword in the sheath,
At that prospect beneath,
Which our Tourists declare so amazing!
Yes — he gazed on the Rhine,
And its banks, so divine;
Yet with no admiration or wonder,
But the goût of a thief,
As a more modern Chief —
Look’d on London, and cried ‘What a plunder!’
From that river so fast,
From that champaign so vast,
He collected rare tribute and presents;
Water-rates from ships’ loads,
Highway-rates on the roads,
And hard Poor-rates from all the poor Peasants!
When behold! round the base
Of his strong dwelling-place,
Only gain’d by most toilsome progression,
He perceived a full score
Of the rustics, or more,
Winding up in a sort of procession!
‘Keep them out! ‘the Knight cried,
To the Warders outside —
But the Hound at his feet gave a grumble;
And in scrambled the knaves,
Like Feudality’s slaves,
With all forms that are servile and humble.
‘Now for boorish complaints!
Grant me patience, ye Saints!’
Cried the Knight, turning red as a mullet;
When the baldest old man
Thus his story began,
With a guttural croak in his gullet!
‘Lord Supreme of our lives,
Of our daughters, our wives,
Our she-cousins, our sons, and their spouses,
Of our sisters and aunts, —
Of the babies God grants,
Of the handmaids that dwell in our houses!
‘Mighty master of all
We possess, great or small,
Of our cattle, our sows, and their farrows;
Of our mares and their colts,
Of our crofts, and our holts,
Of our ploughs, of our wains, and our harrows!
‘Noble Lord of the soil,
Of its corn and its oil, —
Of its wine, only fit for such gentles!
Of our cream and sour-kraut,
Of our carp and our trout,
Our black bread, and black puddings, and lentils!
‘Sovran Lord of our cheese,
And whatever you please —
Of our bacon, our eggs, and our butter,
Of our backs and our polls,
Of our bodies and souls
O give ear to the woes that we utter!
‘We are truly perplex’d,
Wre are frighted and vex’d,
Till the strings of our hearts are all twisted;
We are ruin’d and curst
By the fiercest and worst
Of all Robbers that ever existed!’
‘Now by Heav’n and this light!’
In a rage cried the Knight,
‘For this speech all your bodies shall stiffen!
What! by Peasants miscall’d!’ —
Quoth the man that was bald,
‘Not your Honour we mean, but a Griffin.
‘For our herds and our flocks
He lays wait in the rocks,
And jumps forth without giving us warning;
Two poor wethers, right fat,
And four lambs after that,
Did he swallow this very May morning!’
Then the High-and-Well-Born
Gave a laugh as in scorn, —
‘Is the Griffin indeed such a glutton?
Let him eat up the rams,
And the lambs, and their dams —
If I hate any meat, it is mutton!’
‘Nay, your Worship,’ said then
The most bald of old men,
‘For a sheep we would hardly thus cavil,
If the merciless Beast
Did not oftentimes feast
On the Pilgrims, and people that travel.’ —
‘Feast on what? ‘cried the Knight,
Whilst his eye glisten’d bright
With the most diabolical flashes —
‘Does the Beast dare to prey
On the road and high-way?
With our proper diversion that clashes!’
‘Yea, ’tis so, and far worse,’
Said the Clown, ‘to our curse;
For by way of a snack or a tiffin,
Every week in the year —
Sure as Sundays appear,
A young Virgin is thrown to the Griffin!’