Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hood
Page 58
And what was added with a deal of pain,
But as accounts correctly would explain,
Tho’ thirty thousand pounds had been expended —
The Blackamoors had still been wash’d in vain!
“In fact, the Negroes were as black as ink,
Yet, still as the Committee dared to think,
And hoped the proposition was not rash,
A rather free expenditure of cash—”
But ere the prospect could be made more sunny —
Up jump’d a little, lemon-colored man,
And with an eager stammer, thus began,
In angry earnest, though it sounded funny:
“What! More subscriptions! No — no — no, — not I!”
“You have had time — time — time enough to try!
They WON’T come white! then why — why — why — why,
More money?”
“Why!” said the Chairman, with an accent bland,
And gentle waving of his dexter hand,
“Why must we have more dross, and dirt, and dust,
More filthy lucre, in a word, more gold —
The why, sir, very easily is told,
Because Humanity declares we must!
We’ve scrubb’d the negroes till we’ve nearly killed ‘em,
And finding that we cannot wash them white,
But still their nigritude offends the sight,
We mean to gild ‘em!”
ON LIEUTENANT EYRE’S NARRATIVE OF THE DISASTERS AT CABUL
A sorry tale of sorry plans,
Which this conclusion grants,
That Afghan clans had all the Khans
And we had all the can’ts.
EPIGRAM ON A LATE CATTLE-SHOW IN SMITHFIELD
Old Farmer Bull is taken sick,
Yet not with any sudden trick
Of fever, or his old dyspepsy ;
But having seen the foreign stock,
It gave his system such a shock
He’s had a fit of Cattle-epsy!
MORE HULLAH-BALOO
‘Loud as from numbers without number.’ — Milton.
‘You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.’ — Quince.
Amongst the great inventions of this age,
Which ev’ry other century surpasses,
Is one, — just now the rage, —
Call’d ‘Singing for all Classes ‘ —
That is, for all the British millions,
And billions,
And quadrillions,
Not to name Quintilians,
That now, alas! Have no more ear than asses,
To learn to warble like the birds in June, —
In time and tune,
Correct as clocks, and musical as glasses!
In fact, a sort of plan,
Including gentleman as well as yokel,
Public or private man,
To call out a militia, — only Vocal
Instead of Local,
And not designed for military follies,
But keeping still within the civil border,
To form with mouths in open order,
And sing in volleys.
Whether this grand harmonic scheme
Will ever get beyond a dream,
And tend to British happiness and glory,
Maybe no, and maybe yes,
Is more than I pretend to guess —
However, here’s my story.
In one of those small quiet streets,
Where business retreats,
To shun the daily bustle and the noise
The shoppy Strand enjoys,
But Law, Joint-Companies, and Life
Assurance
Find past endurance —
In one of those back streets, to Peace so dear,
The other day a ragged wight
Began to sing with all his might,
‘I have a silent sorrow here!’
The place was lonely; not a creature stirr’d
Except some little dingy bird;
‘Or vagrant cur that sniff’d along,
Indifferent to the Son of Song;
No truant errand-boy, or Doctor’s lad,
No idle filch or lounging cad,
No Pots encumber’d with diurnal beer,
No printer’s devil with an author’s proof,
Or housemaid on an errand far aloof,
Linger’d the tatter’d melodist to hear —
Who yet, confound him! bawl’d as loud
As if he had to charm a London crowd,
Singing beside the public way,
Accompanied — instead of violin,
Flute, or piano, chiming in —
By rumbling cab, and omnibus, and dray,
A van with iron bars to play staccato,
Or engine obligato —
In short, without one instrument vehicular
(Not ev’n a truck, to be particular),
There stood the rogue and roar’d,
Unasked and unencored,
Enough to split the organs call’d auricular!
Heard in that quiet place,
Devoted to a still and studious race,
The noise was quite appalling!
To seek a fitting simile and spin it,
Appropriate to his calling,
His voice had all Lablache’s body in it;
But oh! the scientific tone it lack’d,
And was in fact,
Only a forty-boatswain-power of bawling! —
’Twas said, indeed, for want of vocal nous,
The stage had banish’d him when he attempted it, —
For tho’ his voice completely fill’d the house,
It also emptied it.
However, there he stood
Vociferous — a ragged don!
And with his iron pipes laid on,
A row to all the neighbourhood.
In vain were sashes closed
And doors, against the persevering
Stentor,
Though brick, and glass, and solid oak opposed,
Th’ intruding voice would enter,
Heedless of ceremonial or decorum,
Den, office, parlour, study, and sanctorum;
Where clients and attorneys, rogues, and fools,
Ladies, and masters who attended schools,
Clerks, agents, all provided with their tools,
Were sitting upon sofas, chairs, and stools,
With shelves, pianos, tables, desks, before ‘em —
How it did bore ‘em!
Louder and louder still,
The fellow sang with horrible goodwill,
Curses both loud and deep his sole gratuities,
From scribes bewilder’d making many a flaw
In deeds of law
They had to draw;
With dreadful incongruities
In posting ledgers, making up accounts
To large amounts,
Or casting up annuities —
Stunn’d by that voice, so loud and hoarse,
Against whose overwhelming force
No in-voice stood a chance, of course!
The Actuary pshaw’d and ‘pish’d,’
And knit his calculating brows, and wish’d
The singer ‘a bad life ‘ — a mental murther!
The Clerk, resentful of a blot and blunder,
Wish’d the musician further,
Poles distant — and no wonder!
For Law and Harmony tend far asunder —
The lady could not keep her temper calm,
Because the sinner did not sing a psalm —
The Fiddler, in the very same position
As Hogarth’s chafed musician
(Such prints require but cursory reminders)
Came and made faces at the wretch beneath,
And wishing for his foe between his teeth,
(Like all impatient elves
That spite themselves)
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Ground his own grinders.
But still with unrelenting note,
Though not a copper came of it, in verity,
The horrid fellow with the ragged coat
And iron throat,
Heedless of present honour and prosperity,
Sang like a Poet singing for posterity,
In penniless reliance —
And, sure, the most immortal Man of Rhyme
Never set Time
More thoroughly at defiance!
From room to room, from floor to floor,
From number One to Twenty-four
The Nuisance bellow’d, till all patience lost,
Down came Miss Frost,
Expostulating at her open door —
‘Peace, monster, peace!
Where is the New Police!
I vow I cannot work, or read, or pray,
Don’t stand there bawling, fellow, don’t!
You really send my serious thoughts astray,
Do — there’s a dear good man — do go away.’ —
Says he, ‘I won’t!’
The spinster pull’d her door to with a slam,
That sounded like a wooden — d — n,
For so some moral people, strictly loth
To swear in words, however up,
Will crash a curse in setting down a cup,
Or through a door post vent a banging oath —
In fact, this sort of physical transgression
Is really no more difficult to trace
Than in a given face —
A very bad expression.
However, in she went,
Leaving the subject of her discontent
To Mr. Jones’s clerk at Number Ten;
Who, throwing up the sash,
With accents rash,
Thus hail’d the most vociferous of men:
‘Come, come, I say, old feller, stop your chant!
I cannot write a sentence — no one can’t!
So just pack up your trumps,
And stir your stumps—’
Says he, ‘I shan’t!’
Down went the sash
As if devoted to ‘eternal smash’
(Another illustration
Of acted imprecation),
While close at hand, uncomfortably near,
The independent voice, so loud and strong,
And clanging like a gong,
Roar’d out again the everlasting song,
‘I have a silent sorrow here!’
The thing was hard to stand!
The Music-master could not stand it —
But rushing forth with fiddle-stick in hand,
As savage as a bandit,
Made up directly to the tatter’d man,
And thus in broken sentences began —
But playing first a prelude of grimace,
Twisting his features to the strangest shapes,
So that to guess his subject from his face,
He meant to give a lecture upon apes —
‘Com — com — I say!
You go away!
Into two parts my head you split —
My fiddle cannot hear himself a bit,
When I do play —
You have nobis’ness in a place so still!
Can you not come another day?’
Says he—’ I will.’
‘No — no — you scream and bawl!
You must not come at all!
Y ou have no rights, by rights, to beg —
You have not one off-leg —
You ought to work — you have not some complaint —
You are not crippled in your back or bones —
Your voice is strong enough to break some stones’ —
Says he—’ It ain’t!’
‘I say you ought to labour!
You are in a young case,
You have not sixty years upon your face,
To come and beg your neighbour,
And discompose his music with a noise
More worse than twenty boys —
Look what a street it is for quiet!
No cart to make a riot,
No coach, no horses, no postilion,
If you will sing, I say, it is not just,
To sing so loud.’ — Says he, ‘I Must!
I’m singing for the Million!’
ON A CERTAIN LOCALITY
Of public changes, good or ill,
I seldom lead the mooters,
But really Constitution Hill
Should change its name with Shooter’s!
LAYING DOWN THE LAW
(ON THE CELEBRATED PICTURE SO CALLED)
— ‘I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips let no dog bark.’
Merchant of Venice.
‘If thou wert born a Dog, remain so; but if thon wert born a Man, resume thy former shape.’ — Arabian Nights.
A Poodle, Judge-like, with emphatic paw,
Dogmatically laying down the law, — .
A batch of canine Counsel round the table,
Keen-eyed, and sharp of nose, and long of jaw,
At sight, at scent, at giving tongue, right able: —
O Edwin Landseer, Esquire, and R.A.,
Thou great Pictorial Esop, say,
What is the moral of this painted fable?
O say, accomplished Artist!
Was it thy purpose, by a scene so quizzical,
To read a wholesome lesson to the Chartist,
So over-partial to the means called Physical,
Sticks, staves, and swords, and guns, the tools of treason?
To show, illustrating the better course,
The very Brutes abandoning Brute Force,
The worry and the fight,
The bark and bite,
In which, says Dr. Watts, the dogs delight,
And lending shaggy ears to
Law and Reason,
As utter’d in that Court of high antiquity
Where sits the Chancellor, supreme as Pope,
But works — so let us hope —
In equity, not iniquity?
Or was it but a speculation
On transmigration,
How certain of our most distinguish’d Daniels,
Interpreters of Law’s bewildering book,
Would look
Transform’d to mastiffs, setters, hounds, and spaniels,
(As Bramins in their Hindoo code advance)
With that great lawyer of the Upper House
Who rules all suits by equitable nous,
Become — like vile Armina’s spouse —
A Dog, called Chance?
Methinks, indeed, I recognise
In those deep-set and meditative eyes
Engaged in mental puzzle,
And that portentous muzzle,
A celebrated Judge, too prone to tarry,
To hesitate on devious ins and outs,
And on preceding doubts to build redoubts
That regiments could not carry —
Prolonging even Law’s delays, and still
Putting a skid upon the wheel uphill,
Meanwhile the weary and desponding client
Seem’d — in the agonies of indecision —
In Doubting Castle, with that dreadful Giant
Described in Bunyan’s Vision!
So slow, indeed, was justice in its ways,
Beset by more than customary clogs,
Going to law in those expensive days
Was much the same as going to the Dogs!
But, possibly, I err,
And that sagacious and judicial Creature,
So Chancellor-like in feature,
With ears so wig-like, and a cap of fur,
Looking as grave, responsible and sage,
As if he had the guardianship in fact,
Of all poor dogs, or crackt,
And puppies under age —
It may be that the Creature was not meant<
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Any especial Lord to represent,
Eldon, or Erskine, Cottenham or Thurlow,
Or Brougham (more like him whose potent jaw
Is holding forth the letter of the law),
Or Lyndhurst, after the vacation’s furlough,
Presently sitting in the House of Peers,
On wool he sometimes wishes in his ears,
When touching Corn Laws, Taxes, or Tithe-piggery,
He hears a fierce attack,
And, sitting on his sack,
Listens in his great wig to greater
Whiggery!
So, possibly, those others,
In coats so various, or sleek or rough,
Aim not at any of the legal brothers
Who wear the silken robe or gown of stuff.
Yet who that ever heard or saw
The Counsel sitting in that solemn Court,
Who, having passed the Bar, are safe in port,
Or those great Sergeants, learned in the Law, —
Who but must trace a feature now and then
Of those forensic men,
As good at finding heirs as any harriers,
Renown’d like greyhounds for long tales — indeed,
The Common Chancery reports to read
At worrying the ear as apt as terriers, —
Good at conveyance as the hairy carriers
That bear our gloves, umbrellas, hats, and sticks,
Books, baskets, bones, or bricks,
In Deeds of Trust as sure as Tray the trusty, —
Acute at sniffing flaws on legal grounds,
And lastly — well the catalogue it closes! —
Still following their predecessors’ noses,
Through ways however dull or dusty,
As fond of hunting precedents, as hounds
Of running after foxes more than musty.
However slow or fast,
Full of urbanity, or supercilious,
In temper wild, serene, or atrabilious,
Fluent of tongue, or prone to legal saw,
The Dogs have got a Chancellor at last,
For Laying down the Law!
And never may the canine race regret it,
With whinings and repinings loud or deep, —
Ragged in coat, and shorten’d in their keep,
Worried by day, and troubled in their sleep,
With cares that prey upon the heart and fret it —