Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hood

by Thomas Hood

  And blood-red light,

  And dazzling Wheels fit for Enchanters’ waggons.

  Thrice lucky woman! doing things that be

  With other folks past benefit of parson;

  For burning, no Burn’s Justice falls on thee,

  Altho’ night after night the public see

  Thy Vauxhall palaces all end in Arson!

  Sure thou wast never born

  Like old Sir Hugh, with water in thy head,

  Nor lectur’d night and morn

  Of sparks and flames to have an awful dread,

  Allowed by a prophetic dam and sire

  To play with fire.

  O didst thou never, in those days gone by,

  Go carrying about — no schoolboy prouder —

  Instead of waxen doll a little Guy;

  Or in thy pretty pyrotechnic vein,

  Up the parental pigtail lay a train,

  To let off all his powder?

  Full of the wildfire of thy youth,

  Did’st never in plain truth,

  Plant whizzing Flowers in thy mother’s pots,

  Turning the garden into powder plots?

  Or give the cook, to fright her,

  Thy paper sausages well stuffed with nitre?

  Nay, wert thou never guilty, now, of dropping

  A lighted cracker by thy sister’s Dear,

  So that she could not hear

  The question he was popping?

  Go on, Madame! Go on — be bright and busy

  While hoax’d Astronomers look up and stare

  From tall observatories, dumb and dizzy,

  To see a Squib in Cassiopeia’s Chair!

  A Serpent wriggling into Charles’s Wain!

  A Roman Candle lighting the Great Bear!

  A Rocket tangled in Diana’s train,

  And Crackers stuck in Berenice’s Hair!

  There is a King of Fire — Thou shouldst be Queen!

  Methinks a good connexion might come from it;

  Could’st thou not make him, in the garden scene,

  Set out per Rocket and return per Comet;

  Then give him a hot treat

  Of Pyrotechnicals to sit and sup,

  Lord! how the world would throng to see him eat,

  He swallowing fire, while thou dost throw it up!

  One solitary night — true is the story,

  Watching those forms that Fancy will create

  Within the bright confusion of the grate,

  I saw a dazzling countenance of glory!

  Oh Dei gratias!

  That fiery facias

  ’Twas thine, Enchantress of the Surrey Grove;

  And ever since that night,

  In dark and bright,

  Thy face is registered within my stove!

  Long may that starry brow enjoy its rays;

  May no untimely blow its doom forestall;

  But when old age prepares the friendly pall,

  When the last spark of all thy sparks decays,

  Then die lamented by good people all,

  Like Goldsmith’s Madam Blaize!

  THE DOUBLE KNOCK

  Rat-tat it went upon the lion’s chin,

  ‘That hat, I know it!’ cried the joyful girl;

  ‘Summer’s it is, I know him by his knock,

  Comers like him are welcome as the day!

  Lizzy! go down and open the street-door,

  Busy I am to any one but him.

  Know him you must — he has been often here;

  Show him up stairs, and tell him I’m alone.’

  Quickly the maid went tripping down the stair;

  Thicldy the, heart of Rose Matilda beat; — ,

  ‘Sure he has brought me tickets for the play —

  Drury — or Covent Garden — darling man! —

  Kemble will play — or Kean who makes the soul

  Tremble; in Richard or the frenzied Moor —

  Farren, the stay and prop of many a farce

  Barren beside — or Liston, Laughter’s Child —

  Kelly the natural, to witness whom

  Jelly is nothing to the public’s jam —

  Cooper, the sensible — and Walter Knowles

  Super, in William Tell, now rightly told.

  Better — perchance, from Andrews, brings a box,

  Letter of boxes for the Italian stage —

  Brocard! Donzelli! Taglioni! Paul!

  No card, — thank heaven — engages me to night!

  Feathers, of course — no turban, and no toque —

  Weather’s against it, but I’ll go in curls.

  Dearly I dote on white — my satin dress,

  Merely one night — it won’t be much the worse —

  Cupid — the New Ballet I long to see —

  Stupid! why don’t she go and ope the door!’ —

  Glisten’d her eye as the impatient girl

  Listen’d, low bending o’er the topmost stair,

  Vainly, alas! she listens and she bends,

  Plainly she hears this question and reply:

  ‘Axes your pardon, Sir, but what d’ye want?’

  ‘Taxes,’ says he, ‘and shall not call again!’

  BAILEY BALLADS

  LINES TO MARY

  (AT NO. 1 NEWGATE, FAVOURED BY MR. WONTNER)

  O Mary, I believ’d you true,

  And I was blest in so believing;

  But till this hour I never knew —

  That you were taken up for thieving!

  Oh! when I snatch’d a tender kiss,

  Or some such trifle when I courted,

  You said; indeed, that love was bliss,

  But never owned you were transported!

  But then to gaze on that fair face —

  It would have been an unfair feeling,

  To dream that you had pilfered lace —

  And Flints had suffer’d from your stealing!

  Or when my suit I first preferr’d,

  To bring your coldness to repentance,

  Before I hammer’d out a word,

  How could I dream you’d heard a sentence!

  Or when with all the warmth of youth

  I strove to prove my love no fiction,

  How could I guess I urged a truth

  On one already past conviction! —

  How could I dream that ivory part,

  Your hand — where I have look’d and linger’d,

  Altho’ it stole away my heart,

  Had been held up as one light-finger’d!

  In melting verse your charms I drew,

  The charms in which my muse delighted —

  Alas! the lay, I thought was new,

  Spoke only what had been indicted!

  Oh! when that form, a lovely one,

  Hung on the neck its arms had flown to, —

  I little thought that you had run

  A chance of hanging on your own too.

  You said you pick’d me from the world,

  My vanity it now must shock it —

  And down at once my pride is hurl’d,

  You’ve pick’d me — and you’ve pick’d a pocket!

  Oh! when our love had got so far,

  The banns were read by Dr. Daly,

  Who asked if there was any bar —

  Why did not some one shout, ‘Old Bailey?’ —

  But when you rob’d your flesh and bones

  In that pure white that angel garb is,

  Who could have thought you, Mary Jones

  Among the Joans that link with Darbies?

  And when the parson came to say,

  My goods were yours, if I had got any,

  And you should honour and obey,

  Who could have thought— ‘O Bay of Botany!’

  But, oh, — the worst of all your slips

  I did not till this day discover — That down in Deptford’s prison ships,

  Oh, Mary! you’ve a hulking lover!

  NO. II

  ‘L
ove with a witness!’

  He has shav’d off his whiskers and blacken’d his brows,

  Wears a patch and a wig of false hair, —

  But it’s him — Oh it’s him! — we exchanged lovers’ vows

  When I lived up in Cavendish Square.

  He had beautiful eyes, and his lips were the same,

  And his voice was as soft as a flute —

  Like a Lord or a Marquis he look’d, when he came

  To make love in his master’s best suit.

  If I lived for a thousand long years from my birth,

  I shall never forget what he told;

  How he lov’d me beyond the rich women of earth,

  With their jewels and silver and gold!

  When he kiss’d me, and bade me adieu with a sigh,

  By the light of the sweetest of moons,

  Oh how little I dreamt I was bidding good-bye

  To my Missis’s tea-pot and spoons!

  NO. III

  ‘I’d be a parody.’ — Bailey.

  We met— ’twas in a mob — and I thought he had done me —

  I felt — I could not feel — for no watch was upon me;

  He ran — the night was cold — and his pace was unalter’d,

  I too longed much to pelt — but my small-boned legs falter’d.

  I wore my bran new boots — and un rival I’d their brightness;

  They fit me to a hair — how I hated their tightness!

  I call’d, but no one came, and my stride had a tether,

  Oh thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather!

  And once again we met — and an old pal was near him,

  He swore, a something low — but ’twas no use to fear him;

  I seized upon his arm, he was mine and mine only,

  And stept — as he deserv’d — to cells wretched and lonely:

  And there he will be tried — but I shall ne’er receive her,

  The watch that went too sure for an artful deceiver;

  The world may think me gay, — heart and feet ache together,

  Oh thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather.

  FRENCH AND ENGLISH

  ‘Good heaven! Why even the little children in France speak French!’ — Addison.

  I

  Never go to France

  Unless you know the lingo,

  If you do, like me,

  You will repent, by jingo.

  Staring like a fool,

  And silent as a mummy,

  There I stood alone,

  A nation with a dummy:

  II

  Chaises stand for chairs,

  They christen letters Billies, They call their mothers marcs,

  And all their daughters fillies;

  Strange it was to hear,

  I’ll tell you what’s a good ‘un,

  They call their leather queer,

  And half their shoes are wooden.

  III

  Signs I had to make

  For every little notion,

  Limbs all going like

  A telegraph in motion,

  For wine I reel’d about,

  To show my meaning fully,

  And made a pair of horns,

  To ask for ‘beef and bully.’

  IV

  Moo! I cried for milk;

  I got my sweet things snugger,

  When I kissed Jeanette,

  ’Twas understood for sugar.

  If I wanted bread,

  My jaws I set a-going,

  And asked for new-laid eggs,

  By clapping hands and crowing!

  V

  If I wish’d a ride,

  I’ll tell you how I got it;

  On my stick astride

  I made believe to trot it;

  Then their cash was strange,

  It bored me every minnte,

  Now here’s a hog to change,

  How many sows are in it!

  VI

  Never go to France,

  Unless you know the lingo;

  If you do, like me,

  You will repent, by jingo;

  Staring like a fool,

  And silent as a mummy,

  There I stood alone,

  A nation with a dummy!

  OUR VILLAGE. — BY A VILLAGER

  ‘Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.’ — Goldsmith.

  Our village, that’s to say not Miss Mitford’s village, but our village of Bullock Smithy,

  Is come into by an avenue of trees, three oak pollards, two elders, and a withy;

  And in the middle, there’s a green of about not exceeding an acre and a half;

  It’s common to all, and fed off by nineteen cows, six ponies, three horses,

  five asses, two foals, seven pigs, and a calf!

  Besides a pond in the middle, as is held by a similar sort of common law lease,

  And contains twenty ducks, six drakes, three ganders, two dead dogs, four

  drown’d kittens, and twelve geese.

  Of course the green’s cropt very close, and does famous for bowling when

  the little village boys play at cricket;

  Only some horse, or pig, or cow, or great jackass, is sure to come and stand

  right before the wicket.

  There’s fifty-five private houses, let alone barns and workshops, and pigstyes,

  and poultry buts, and such-like sheds;

  With plenty of public-houses — two Foxes, one Green Man, three Bunch of Grapes, one Crown, and six King’s Heads.

  The Green Man is reckon’d the best, as the only one that for love or money can raise

  A postilion, a blue jacket, two deplorable lame white horses, and a ramshackled ‘neat postccaise.’

  There’s one parish church for all the people, whatsoever may be their ranks

  in life or their degrees,

  Except one very damp, small, dark, freezing-cold, little Methodist chapel of Ease;

  And close by the church-yard there’s a stone-mason’s yard, that when the time is seasonable

  Will furnish with afflictions sore and marble urns and cherubims very low and reasonable.

  There’s a cage, comfortable enough; I’ve been in it with old Jack Jeffrey and Tom Pike;

  For the Green Man next door will send you in ale, gin, or any thing else you like.

  I can’t speak of the stocks, as nothing remains of them but the upright post;

  But the pound is kept in repairs for the sake of Cob’s horse, as is always there almost.

  There’s a smithy of course, where that queer sort of a chap in his way, Old Joe Bradley,

  Perpetually hammers and stammers, for he stutters and shoes horses very badly.

  There’s a shop of all sorts, that sells every thing, kept by the widow of Mr. Task;

  But when you go there it’s ten to one she’s out of every thing you ask.

  You’ll know her house by the swarm of boys, like flies, about the old sugary cask:

  There are six empty houses, and not so well paper’d inside as out,

  For bill-stickers won’t beware, but sticks notices of sales and election placards all about.

  That’s the Doctor’s with a green door, where the garden pots in the windows is seen;

  A weakly monthly rose that don’t blow, and a dead geranium, and a teaplant with five black leaves and one green.

  As for hollyoaks at the cottage doors, and honeysuckles and jasmines, you may go and whistle; —

  But the Tailor’s front garden grows two cabbages, a dock, a ha’porth of pennyroyal, two dandelions, and a thistle.

  There are three small orchards — Mr. Busby’s the schoolmaster’s is the chief —

  With two pear-trees that don’t bear; one plum and an apple, that every

  year is stripped by a thief.

  There’s another small day-school too, kept by the respectable Mrs. Gaby.

  A select establishment, for six little boys and one big,
and four little girls and a baby;

  There’s a rectory, with pointed gables and strange odd chimneys that never smokes,

  For the rector don’t live on his living like other Christian sort of folks;

  There’s a barber’s, once a-week well filled with rough black-bearded, shockheaded churls,

  And a window with two feminine men’s heads, and two masculine ladies in false curls;

  There’s a butcher’s, and a carpenter’s, and a plumber’s, and a small greengrocer’s, and a baker, —

  But he won’t bake on a Sunday, and there’s a sexton that’s a coal-merchant

  besides, and an undertaker;

  And a toy-shop, but not a whole one, for a village can’t compare with the London shops;

  One window sells drums, dolls, kites, carts, bats, Clout’s balls, and the other sells malt and hops.

  And Mrs. Brown, in domestic economy not to be a bit behind her betters,

  Lets her house to a milliner, a watchmaker, a rat-catcher, a cobler, lives in

  it herself, and it’s the post-office for letters.

  Now I’ve gone through all the village — ay, from end to end, save and except one more house,

  But I haven’t come to that — and I hope I never shall — and that’s the Village Poor House!

  A TRUE STORY

  Whoe’er has seen upon the human face

  The yellow jaundice and the jaundice black,

  May form a notion of old Colonel Case

  With nigger Pompey waiting at his back.

  Case, — as the case is, many time with folks

  From hot Bengal, Calcutta, or Bombay,

  Had tint his tint, as Scottish tongues would say,

  And show’d two cheeks as yellow as eggs’ yolks.

  Pompey, the chip of some old ebon block,

  In hue was like his master’s stiff cravat, —

  And might indeed have claimed akin to that,