by Thomas Hood
THE FOX AND THE HEN
THE COMET AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE
LOVE AND LUNACY
THOSE EVENING BELLS
LINES TO A FRIEND AT COBHAM
THE QUAKERS’ CONVERSAZIONE
LINES ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE
THE LAMENT OF TOBY, THE LEARNED PIG
TO A BAD RIDER
MY SON AND HEIR
AN ANCIENT CONCERT
BY A VENERABLE DIRECTOR
‘Give me old music — let me hear
The songs of days gone by!’ — H. F. Chorley.
O! come, all ye who love to hear
An ancient song in ancient taste,
To whom all bygone Music’s dear
As verdant spots in Memory’s waste!
Its name ‘The Ancient Concert ‘wrongs,
And has not hit the proper clef,
To wit, Old Folks, to sing Old Songs,
To Old Subscribers rather deaf.
Away then, Hawes! with all your band! —
Ye beardless boys, this room desert!
One youthful voice, or youthful hand,
Our concert-pitch would disconcert!
No Bird must join our ‘vocal throng,’
The present age beheld at font:
Away, then, all ye ‘Sons of Song,’
Your Fathers are the men we want!
Away, Miss Birch, you’re in your prime!
Miss Romer, seek some other door!
Go, Mrs. Shaw! till, counting time,
You count you’re nearly fifty-four!
Go, Miss Novello, sadly young!
Go, thou composing Chevalier,
And roam the county towns among,
No Newcome will be welcome here!
Our Concert aims to give at night
The music that has had its day!
So, Rooke, for us you cannot write
Till time has made you Raven grey.
Your score may charm a modern ear,
Nay, ours, when three orfourscore old,
But in this Ancient atmosphere,
Fresh airs like yours would give us cold!
Go, Hawes, and Cawse, and Woodyat, go!
Hence, Shirreff, with those native curls;
And Master Coward ought to know
This is no place for boys and girls!
No Massons here we wish to see;
Nor is it Mrs. Seguin’s sphere,
And Mrs. B —— ! Oh! Mrs. B —— — ,
Such Bishops are not reverend here!
What! Grisi, bright and, beaming thus! —
To sing the songs gone grey with age!
No, Grisi, no, — but come to us
And welcome, when you leave the stage!
Off, Ivanhoff! — till weak and harsh! —
Rubini, hence! with all the clan!
But come, Lablache, years hence, Lablache,
A little shrivell’d thin old man! —
Go, Mr. Phillips, where you please!
Away, Tom Cooke, and all your batch;
You’d run us out of breath with Glees,
And Catches that we could not catch.
Away, ye Leaders all, who lead
With violins, quite modern things;
To guide our Ancient band we need
Old fiddles out of leadingstrings!
But come, ye Songsters, over-ripe,
That into ‘childish trebles break!’
And bring, Miss Winter, bring the pipe
That cannot sing without a shake!
Nay, come, ye Spinsters all, that spin
A slender thread of ancient voice,
Old notes that almost seem call’d in;
At such as you we shall rejoice!
No thund’ring Thalbergs here shall baulk,
Or ride your pet D-cadence o’er,
But fingers with a little chalk
Shall, moderato, keep the score!
No Broadwoods here, so full of tone,
But Harpsichords assist the strain:
No Lincoln’s pipes, we have our own
Bird-Organ, built by Tubal-Cain.
And welcome! St. Cecilians, now
Ye willy-nilly, ex-good fellows,
Who will strike up, no matter how,
With organs that survive their bellows!
And bring, Obring, your ancient styles
In which our elders lov’d to roam,
Those flourishes that strayed for miles,
Till some good fiddle led them home!
O come, ye ancient London Cries,
When Christmas Carols erst were sung!
Come, Nurse, who dron’d the lullabies,
‘When Music, heavenly Maid, was young!’
No matter how the critics treat,
What modern sins and faults detect,
The Copy-Book shall still repeat,
These Concerts must ‘Command respect!’
SONNET ON STEAM
BY AN UNDER-OSTLER
I wish I livd a Thowsen year Ago
Wurking for Sober, six and Seven milers
And dubble Stages runnen safe and slo
The Orsis cum in Them days to the Bilers
But Now by meens of Powers of Steem forces
A-turning Coches into Smoakey Kettels
The Bilers seam a Cumming to the Orses
And Helps and naggs Will sune be out of Vittels
Poor Bruits I wunder How we bee to Liv
When sutch a change of Orses is our Faits —
No nothink need Be sifted in a Siv
May them Blowd ingins all Blow up their Grates
And Theaves of Osiers crib the Coles and Giv
Their blackgard Hannimuls a Feed of Slaits!
A REPORT FROM BELOW
‘Blow high, blow low.’ — Sea Song.
As Mister B. and Mistress B.
One night were sitting down to tea,
With toast and muffins hot —
They heard a loud and sudden bounce,
That made the very china flounce,
They could not for a time pronounce
If they were safe or shot —
For Memory brought a deed to match
At Deptford done by night —
Before one eye appeared a Patch
In t’other eye a Blight!
To be belabour’d out of life,
Without some small attempt at strife,
Our nature will not grovel;
One impulse mov’d both man and dame,
He seized the tongs — she did the same,
Leaving the ruffian, if he came,
The poker and the shovel.
Suppose the couple standing so,
When rushing footsteps from below
Made pulses fast and fervent;
And first burst in the frantic cat,
All steaming like a brewer’s rat,
And then — as white as my cravat —
Poor Mary May, the servant!
Lord, how the couple’s teeth did chatter,
Master and Mistress both flew at her,
‘Speak! Fire? or Murder? What’s the matter?’
Till Mary getting breath,
Upon her tale began to touch
With rapid tongue, full trotting, such
As if she thought she had too much
To tell before her death: —
‘We was both, Ma’am, in the wash-house,
Ma’am, a-standing at our tubs,
And Mrs. Round was seconding what little things I rubs;
“Mary,” says she to me, “I say” — and there she stops for coughin’,
“That dratted copper flue has took to smokin’ very often,
But please the pigs,” — for that’s her way of swearing in a passion,
“I’ll blow it up, and not be set a coughin’ in this fashion!”
Well, down she takes my master’s horn — I mean his horn for loading,
And empties every grain alive for
to set the flue exploding.
Lawk, Mrs. Round! says I, and stares, that quantum is unproper,
I’m sartin sure it can’t not take a pound to sky a copper;
You’ll powder both our heads off, so I tells you, with its puff,
But she only dried her fingers, and she takes a pinch of snuff.
Well, when the pinch is over—” Teach your grandmother to suck
A powder horn,” says she — Well, says I, I wish you luck.
Them words sets up her back, so with her hands upon her hips,
“Come,” says she, quite in a huff, “come, keep your tongue inside your lips;
Afore ever you was born, I was well used to things like these; —
I shall put it in the grate, and let it burn up by degrees.”
So in it goes, and Bounce — O Lord! it gives us such a rattle,
I thought we both were cannonized, like Sogers in a battle!
Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs,
And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into cracks.
Well, there I fainted dead away, and might have been cut shorter,
But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding water.
I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a distance,
As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in existence;
All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the copper slap
Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion copper cap.
Well, I crooks her little fingers, and crumps them well up together,
As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a feather;
But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality,
She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality.
Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late departed mother,
Well, she’ll wash no more in this world, whatever she does in t’other.
So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute,
Lawk, sich a shirt! thinks I, it’s well my master wasn’t in it;
Oh! I never, never, never, never, never, see a sight so shockin’; —
Here lays a leg, and there a leg — I mean, you know, a stocking —
Bodies all slit and torn to rags, and many a tattered skirt,
And arms burnt off, and sides and backs all scotched and black with dirt;
But as nobody was in ‘em — none but — nobody was hurt!
Well, there I am, a-scrambling up the things, all in a lump,
When, mercy on us! such a groan as makes my heart to jump.
And there she is, a-lying with a crazy sort of eye,
A-staring at the wash-house roof, laid open to the sky;
Then she beckons with a finger, and so down to her I reaches,
And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches, —
For, poor soul! she has a husband and young orphans, as I knew;
Well, Ma’am, you wont believe it, but it’s Gospel fact and true,
But these words is all she whispered—” Why, where is the powder blew?”’
ODE TO M. BRUNEL
‘Well said, old mole! canst work i’the earth so fast? a worthy pioneer!’ — Hamlit.
Well! — Monsieur Brunel,
How prospers now thy mighty undertaking,
To join by a hollow way the Bankside friends
Of Rotherhithe, and Wapping, —
Never be stopping,
But poking, groping, in the dark keep making
An archway, underneath the” Dabs and Gudgeons,
For Collier men and pitchy old Curmudgeons,
To cross the water in inverse proportion,
Walk under steam-boats under the keel’s ridge,
To keep down all extortion,
And without sculls to diddle London Bridge!
In a fresh hunt, a new Great Bore to worry,
Thou didst to earth thy human terriers follow,
Hopeful at last from Middlesex to Surrey,
To give us the ‘View hollow.’
In short it was thy aim, right north and south,
To put a pipe into old Thames’s mouth;
Alas! half-way thou hadst proceeded, when
Old Thames, through roof, not water-proof, —
Came, like ‘a tide in the affairs of men;’
And with a mighty stormy kind of roar,
Reproachful of thy wrong,
Burst out in that old song
Of Incledon’s, beginning ‘Cease, rude Bore—’
Sad is it, worthy of one’s tears,
Just when one seems the most successful,
To find one’s self o’er head and ears
In difficulties most distressful!
Other great speculations have been nursed, —
Till want of proceeds laid them on a shelf;
But thy concern was at the worst,
When it began to liquidate itself!
But now Dame Fortune has her false face hidden,
And languishes thy Tunnel, — so to paint,
Under a slow incurable complaint,
Bed-ridden!
Why, when thus Thames — bed-bother’d — why repine?
Do try a spare bed at the Serpentine!
Yet let none think thee daz’d, or craz’d, or stupid; —
And sunk beneath thy own and Thames’s craft;
Let them not style thee some Mechanic Cupid
Pining and pouting o’er a broken shaft!
I’ll tell thee with thy tunnel what to do;
Light up thy boxes, build a bin or two,
The wine does better than such water trades:
Stick up a sign — the sign of the Bore’s Head;
I’ve drawn it ready for thee in black lead,
And make thy cellar subterrane, — Thy Shades!
OVER THE WAY
‘I sat over against a window where them stood a pot with very pretty flowers; and I had my eyes fixed on it, when on a sudden the window opened, and a young lady appeared whose beauty struck me.’ — Arabian Nights.
Alas! the flames of an unhappy lover
About my heart and on my vitals prey;
I’ve caught a fever that I can’t get over,
Over the way
Oh! why are eyes of hazel? noses Grecian!
I’ve lost my rest by night, my peace by day,
For want of some brown Holland or Venetian,
Over the way.
I’ve gazed too often, till my heart’s as lost
As any needle in a stack of hay: —
Crosses belong to love, and mine is crossed
Over the way!
I cannot read or write, or thoughts relax —
Of what avail Lord Althorp or Earl Grey?
They cannot ease me of my window-tax
Over the way!
Even on Sunday my devotions vary,
And from St. Bennet Fink they go astray
To dear St. Mary Overy — the Mary
Over the way! —
Oh! if my godmother were but a fairy,
With magic wand, how I would beg and pray
That she would change me into that canary
Over the way!
I envy, every thing that’s near Miss Lindo,
A pug, a poll, a squirrel or a jay —
Blest blue-bottles! that buz about the window
Over the way!
Even at even, for there be no shutters,
I see her reading on, from grave to gay, —
Some tale or poem, till the candle gutters
Over the way!
And then — oh! then — while the clear waxen taper
Emits, two stories high, a starlike ray,
I see twelve auburn curls put into paper
Over the way!
But how breathe unto her my deep regards,
Or ask her for a whispered ay or nay, —
; Or offer her my hand, some thirty yards
Over the way? —
Cold as the pole she is to my adoring; —
Like Captain Lyon, at Repulse’s Bay,
I meet an icy end to my exploring
Over the way!
Each dirty little Savoyard that dances
She looks on — Punch — or chimney-sweeps in May;
Zounds I wherefore cannot I attract her glances
Over the way?
Half out she leans to watch a tumbling brat,
Or yelping cur, run over by a dray; —
But I’m in love — she never pities that I
Over the way!
I go to the same church — a love-lost labour;
Haunt all her walks, and dodge her at the play;
She does not seem to know she has a neighbour
Over the way!
At private theatres she never acts;
No Crown-and-Anchor balls her fancy sway;
She never visits gentlemen with tracts
Over the way!
To billets-doux by post she shows no favour —
In short, there is no plot that I can lay
To break my window-pains to my enslaver
Over the way!
I play the flute — she heeds not my chromatics —
No friend an introduction can purvey;
I wish a fire would break out in the attics
Over the way!
My wasted form ought of itself to touch her;
My baker feels my appetite’s decay;
And as for butchers’ meat — oh! she’s my butcher
Over the way!
At beef I turn; at lamb or veal I pout;
I never ring now to bring up the tray;
My stomach grumbles at my dining out
Over the way!
I’m weary of my life; without regret
I could resign this miserable clay
To lie within that box of mignonette
Over the way!
I’ve fitted bullets to my pistol-bore;
I’ve vowed at times to rush where trumpets bray,
Quite sick of number one — and number four
Over the way!
Sometimes my fancy builds up castles airy,
