Thomas Hood- Collected Poetical Works

by Thomas Hood

To think, whilst I have crow’d like chanticleer,

  Perchance, from some dull eye the hopeless tear

  Hath gush’d, with my light levity at schism,

  To mourn some Martyr of Empiricism!

  Perchance, on thy own system, I have giv’n

  A pang, superfluous to the pains of Sorrow,

  Who weeps with Memory from morn till even;

  Where comfort there is none to lend or borrow,

  Sighing to one sad strain,

  ‘She will not come again,

  To-morrow, nor to-morrow, nor to-morrow!’

  Doctor, forgive me, if I dare prescribe

  A rule for thee thyself, and all thy tribe,

  Inserting a few serious words by stealth;

  Above all price of wealth

  The Body’s Jewel, not for minds profane,

  Or hands, to tamper with in practice vain —

  Like to a Woman’s Virtue is Man’s Health.

  A heavenly gift within a holy shrine!

  To be approach’d and touch’d with serious fear,

  By hands made pure, and hearts of faith severe,

  Ev’n as the Priesthood of the ONE divine!

  But, zounds! each fellow with a suit of black,

  And, strange to fame,

  With a diploma’d name,

  That carries two more letters pick-a-back,

  With cane, and snuff-box, powder’d wig, and block,

  Invents his dose, as if it were a chrism,

  And dares to treat our wondrous mechanism,

  Familiar as the works of old Dutch clock;

  Yet, how would common sense esteem the man,

  Oh how, my unrelated German cousin,

  Who having some such time-keeper, on trial,

  And finding it too fast, enforc’d the dial,

  To strike upon the Homoeopathic plan

  Of fourteen to the dozen?

  Take my advice, ’tis given without a fee,

  Drown, drown your book ten thousand fathoms deep,

  Like Prospero’s beneath the briny sea,

  For spells of magic have all gone to sleep!

  Leave no decillionth fragment of your works,

  To help the interests of quacking Burkes;

  Aid not in murdering ev’n widows’ mites,

  And now forgive me for my candid zeal,

  I had not said so much, but that I feel

  Should you take ill what here my Muse indites,

  An Ode-ling more will set you all to rights.

  THE DEAD ROBBERY

  ‘Here’s that will sack a city. — Henry the IVth.

  Of all the causes that induce mankind

  To strike against themselves a mortal docket,

  Two eminent above the rest we find —

  To be in love, or to be out of pocket:

  Both have made many melancholy martyrs,

  But p’rhaps, of all the felonies de se,

  By ponds, and pistols, razors, ropes and garters,

  Two thirds have been through want of £. s d.!

  Thus happen’d it with Peter Bunce;

  Both in the dumps and out of them at once,

  From always drawing blanks in Fortune’s lottery,

  At last, impatient of the light of day,

  He made his mind up to return his clay

  Back to the pottery.

  Feigning a raging tooth that drove him mad,

  From twenty divers druggists’ shops

  He begg’d enough of laudanum by drops

  T’ effect the fatal purpose that he had;

  He drank them, died, and while old

  Charon ferried him,

  The Coroner convened a dozen men,

  Who found his death was phialent — and then

  The Parish buried him!

  Unwatch’d, unwept,

  As commonly a Pauper sleeps, he slept;

  There could not be a better opportunity

  For bodies to steal a body so ill kept,

  With all impunity:

  In fact, when Night o’er human vice and folly

  Had drawn her very necessary curtains,

  Down came a fellow with a sack and spade,

  Accustom’d many years to drive a trade,

  With that Anatomy more Melancholy

  Than Burton’s!

  The Watchman in his box was dozing;

  The Sexton drinking at the Cheshire Cheese;

  No fear of any creature interposing,

  The human Jackal work’d away at ease:

  He toss’d the mould to left and right,

  The shabby coffin came in sight,

  And soon it open’d to his doubleknocks,

  When lo! the stiff’un that he thought to meet

  Starts sudden up, like Jacky-in-a-box,

  Upon his seat!

  Awaken’d from his trance,

  For so the laudanum had wrought by chance,

  Bunce stares up at the moon, next looking level,

  He spies a shady Figure, tall and bony,

  Then shudders out these words ‘Are

  — you — the — Devil?’

  ‘The Devil a bit of him,’ says Mike Mahoney,

  ‘I’m only com’d here, hoping no affront,

  To pick up honestly a little blunt—’

  ‘Blunt!’ echoes Bunce, with a hoarse croak of laughter,’

  Why, man, I turn’d life’s candle in the socket,

  Without a rap in either pocket,

  For want of that same blunt you’re looking after!’

  ‘That’s true,’ says Mike, ‘and many a pretty man

  Has cut his stick upon your very plan,

  Not worth a copper, him and all his trumps,

  And yet he’s fetch’d a dacent lot of stuff,

  Provided he was sound and fresh enough,

  And dead as dumps.’

  ‘I take,’ quoth Bunce, with a hard wink, ‘the fact is,

  You mean a subject for a surgeon’s practice,

  I hope the question is not out of reason,

  But just suppose a lot of flesh and bone,

  For instance, like my own,

  What might it chance to fetch now, at this season?’

  ‘Fetch is it?’ answers Mike, ‘why prices differ,

  But taking this same small bad job of ours,

  I reckon, by the pow’rs! —

  I’ve lost ten pound by your not being stiffer!’

  ‘Ten pounds!’ Bunce echoes in a sort of flurry,

  ‘Odd zounds!

  Ten pounds,

  How sweet it sounds,

  Ten pounds!’

  And on his feet upspringing in a hurry —

  It seem’d the operation of a minute —

  A little scuffle — then a whack —

  And then he took the Body Snatcher’s sack —

  And poked him in it!

  Such is this life!

  A very pantomime for tricks and strife!

  See Bunce, so lately in Death’s passive stock,

  Invested, now as active as a griffin,

  Walking — no ghost — in velveteens and smock,

  To sell a stifi’un!

  A flash of red, then one of blue,

  At last, like lighthouse, came in view;

  Bunce rang the nightbell; wiped his highlows muddy; —

  His errand told; sack produced;

  And by a sleepy boy was introduced

  To Dr. Oddy, writing in his study.

  The bargain did not long take time to settle,

  ‘Ten pounds, Odd zounds!

  How well it sounds, Ten pounds,’

  Chink’d into Bunce’s palm in solid metal.

  With joy half-crazed,

  It seem’d some trick of sense, some airy gammon,

  He gazed and gazed,

  At last, possess’d with the old lust of Mammon,

  Thought he, ‘With what a very little trouble,

  This little capital I now might doub
le

  Another scuffle of its usual brevity,

  And Doctor Oddy, in his suit of black,

  Was finishing, within the sack,

  His ‘Thoughts upon Longevity!’

  The trick was done. Without a doubt,no

  The sleepy boy let Bunce and burthen out;

  Who coming to a lone convenient place,

  The body stripp’d; hid all the clothes, and then,

  Still favoured by the luck of evil men,

  Found a new customer in Dr. Case.

  All more minute particulars to smother,

  Let it suffice,

  Nine guineas was the price

  For which one doctor bought the other;

  As once I heard a Preacher say in Guinea,

  ‘You see how one black sin bring on anudder,

  Like little nigger pickaninny,

  A-riding pick-a-back upon him mudder! ‘

  ‘Humph!’ said the Doctor, with a smile sarcastic,

  Seeming to trace

  Some likeness in the face,

  ‘So death at last has taken old Bombastic! ‘

  But in the very middle of his joking,

  The subject, still unconscious of the scoff —

  Seized all at once with a bad fit of choking,

  He too was taken off!

  Leaving a fragment ‘On the Hooping Cough.’

  Satan still sending luck,

  Another body found another buyer:

  For ten pounds ten the bargain next was struck,

  Dead doctors going higher.

  ‘Here,’ said the purchaser, with smile quite pleasant

  Taking a glimpse at his departed brother,

  ‘Here’s half a guinea in the way of present —

  Subjects are scarce, and when you get another,

  Let me be first.’ — Bunce took him at his word,

  And suddenly his old atrocious trick did,

  Sacking M.D. the third,

  Ere he could furnish ‘Hints to the Afflicted.’

  Flush’d with success,

  Beyond all hope or guess,

  His new dead robbery upon his back,

  Bunce plotted — such high flights ambition takes,

  To treat the Faculty like ducks and drakes,

  And sell them all ere they could utter ‘Quack! ‘ —

  But Fate opposed. — According to the schools,

  When men become insufferably bad,

  The gods confer to drive them mad;

  March hairs upon the heads of April fools!

  Tempted by the old demon avaricious,

  Bunce traded on too far into the morning;

  Till nods, and winks, and looks, and signs suspicious,

  Ev’n words malicious,

  Forced on him rather an unpleasant warning.

  Glad was he to perceive, beside a wicket,

  A porter, ornamented with a ticket,

  Who did not seem to be at all too busy —

  ‘Here, my good man,

  Just show me, if you can,

  A doctor’s — if you want to earn a tizzy!’

  Away the porter marches,

  And with grave face, obsequious precedes him,

  Down crooked lanes, round corners, under arches;

  At last, up an old-fashion’d staircase leads him,

  Almost impervious to the morning ray,

  Then shows a door—’ There, that’s a doctor’s reckon’d,

  A rare Top-Sawyer, let who will come second —

  Good day.’ ‘I’m right,’ thought Bunce, ‘as any trivet;

  Another venture — and then up I give it!’

  He rings — the door, just like a fairy portal,

  Opens untouch’d by mortal —

  He gropes his way into a dingy room,

  And hears a voice come growling through the gloom,

  ‘Well — eh? — Who? What? — Speak out at once! ‘ —

  ‘I will,’ says Bunce.

  ‘I’ve got a sort of article to sell;

  Medical gemmen knows me very well—’

  But think Imagination how it shock’d her

  To hear the voice roar out, ‘Death! Devil! d — n!

  Confound the vagabond, he thinks I am

  A rhubarb-and-magnesia Doctor!’

  ‘No Doctor!’ exclaim’d Bunce, and dropp’d his jaw,

  But louder still the voice began to bellow,

  ‘Yes, yes, odd zounds! — I am a Doctor, fellow,

  At law!’

  The word suffic’d. — Of things Bunce feared the most

  (Next to a ghost)

  Was law, or any of the legal corps,

  He dropp’d at once his load of flesh and bone,

  And, caring for no body, save his own,

  Bolted, and lived securely till fourscore,

  From never troubling Doctors any more!

  THE DESERT-BORN

  ‘Fly to the desert, fly with me.’ — Lady Hester Stanhope.

  ’Twas in the wilds of Lebanon, amongst its barren hills,

  To think upon it, even now, my very blood it chills! —

  My sketch-book spread before me, and my pencil in my hand,

  I gazed upon the mountain range, the red tumultuous sand,

  The plumy palms, the sombre firs, the cedars tall and proud,

  When lo! a shadow pass’d across the paper like a cloud,

  And looking up I saw a form, apt figure for the scene,

  Methought I stood in presence of some oriental queen!

  The turban on her head was white as any driven snow;

  A purple bandalette pass’d o’er the lofty brow below,

  And thence upon her shoulders fell, by either jewell’d ear;

  In yellow folds voluminous she wore her long cachemere;

  Whilst underneath, with ample sleeves, a Turkish robe of silk

  Enveloped her in drapery the colour of new milk;

  Yet oft it floated wide in front, disclosing underneath

  A gorgeous Persian tunic, rich with many a broider’d wreath,

  Compelled by clasps of costly pearl around her neck to meet —

  And yellow as the amber were the buskins on her feet!

  Of course I bowed my lowest bow — of all the things on earth,

  The reverence due to loveliness, to rank, or ancient birth,

  To pow’r, to wealth, to genius, or to anything uncommon,

  A man should bend the lowest in a Desert to a Woman!

  Yet some strange influence stronger still, though vague and undefin’d,

  Compell’d me, and with magic might subdued my soul and mind;

  There was a something in her air that drew the spirit nigh,

  Beyond the common witchery that dwells in woman’s eye!

  With reverence deep, like any slave of that peculiar land,

  I bowed my forehead to the earth, and kissed the arid sand;

  And then I touch’d her garment’s hem, devoutly as a Dervise,

  Predestinated (so I felt) for ever to her service. —

  Nor was I wrong in auguring thus my fortune from her face,

  She knew me, seemingly, as well as any of her race;

  ‘Welcome!’ she cried, as I uprose submissive to my feet;

  ‘It was ordain’d that you and I should in this desert meet!

  Aye, ages since, before thy soul had burst its prison bars,

  This interview was promis’d in the language of the stars!’

  Then clapping, as the Easterns wont, her all-commanding hands,

  A score of mounted Arabs came fast spurring o’er the sands,

  Nor rein’d they up their foaming steeds till in my very face

  They blew the breath impetuous, and panting from the race.

  ‘Fear nought,’ exclaimed the radiant one, as I sprang off aloof,

  ‘Thy precious frame need never fear a blow from horse’s hoof!

  Thy natal star was fortunate as any orb of birth,

  And fa
te hath held in store for thee the rarest gift of earth.’

  Then turning to the dusky men, that humbly waited near,

  She cried, ‘Go bring the Beautiful — for lo! the Man is here!’

  Off went th’ obsequious train as swift as Arab hoofs could flee,

  But Fancy fond outraced them all, with bridle loose and free,

  And brought me back, for love’s attack, some fair Circassian bride,

  Or Georgian girl, the Harem’s boast, and fit for sultan’s side;

  Methought I lifted up her veil, and saw dark eyes beneath,

  Mild as gazelle’s, a snowy brow, ripe lips, and pearly teeth,

  A swanlike neck, a shoulder round, full bosom, and a waist

  Not too compact, and rounded limbs, to oriental taste.

  Methought — but here, alas! alas! the airy dream to blight,

  Behold the Arabs leading up a mare of milky white!

  To tell the truth, without reserve, evasion, or remorse,

  The last of creatures in my love or liking is a horse:

  Whether in early youth some kick untimely laid me flat,

  Whether from born antipathy, as some dislike a cat,

  I never yet could bear the kind, from Meux’s giant steeds

  Down to those little bearish cubs of Shetland’s shaggy breeds; —

  As for a warhorse, he that can bestride one is a hero,

  Merely to look at such a sight my courage sinks to zero.

  With lightning eyes, and thunder mane, and hurricanes of legs,

  Tempestuous tail — to picture him description vainly begs!

  His fiery nostrils sent forth clouds of smoke instead of breath —

  Nay, was it not a Horse that bore the grisly Shape of Death?

  Judge then how cold an ague-fit of agony was mine

  To see the mistress of my fate, imperious, make a sign

  To which my own foreboding soul the cruel sense supplied:

  ‘Mount, happy man, and run away with your Arabian bride!’

  Grim was the smile, and tremulous the voice with which I spoke,

  Like any one’s when jesting with a subject not a joke,

  So men have trifled with the axe before the fatal stroke.

  ‘Lady, if mine had been the luck in Yorkshire to be born,

  Or any of its ridings, this would be a blessed morn:

  But, hapless one! I cannot ride — there’s something in a horse

  That I can always honour, but I never could endorse.

  To speak still more commercially, in riding I am quite

  Averse to running long, and apt to be paid off at sight: