by Thomas Hood
The Spring! I shrink and shudder at her name!
For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter!
And suffer from her blows as if they came
From Spring the Fighter.
Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing,
And be her tuneful laureates and upholders,
Who do not feel as if they had a Spying
Pour’d down their shoulders!
Let others eulogise her floral shows,
From me they cannot win a single stanza,
I know her blooms are in full blow — and so’s
The Influenza.
Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale,
Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at,
Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale,
Are things I sneeze at!
Fair is the vernal quarter of the year!
And fair its early buddings and its blowings —
But just suppose Consumption’s seeds appear
With other sowings!
For me, I find, when eastern winds are high,
A frigid, not a genial inspiration;
Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb, defy
An inflammation.
Smitten by breezes from the land of plague,
To me all vernal luxuries are fables,
Oh! where’s the Spring in a rheumatic leg,
Stiff as a table’s?
I limp in agony, — I wheeze and cough;
And quake with Ague, that great Agitator;
Nor dream, before July, of leaving off
My Respirator.
What wonder if in May itself I lack
A peg for laudatory verse to hang on? —
Spring mild and gentle! — yes, as Spring-heeled Jack
To those he sprang on.
In short, whatever panegyrics lie
In fulsome odes too many to be cited,
The tenderness of Spring is all my eye,
And that is blighted!
A FIRST ATTEMPT IN RHYME
If I were used to writing verse,
And had a muse not so perverse,
But prompt at Fancy’s call to spring
And carol like a bird in Spring;
Or like a Bee, in summer time,
That hums about a bed of thyme,
And gathers honey and delights
From ev’ry blossom where it ‘lights;
If I, alas! had such a muse,
To touch the Reader or amuse,
And breathe the true poetic vein,
This page should not be fill’d in vain!
But ah! the pow’r was never mine
To dig for gems in Fancy’s mine:
Or wander over land and main
To seek the Fairies’ old domain —
To watch Apollo while he climbs
His throne in oriental climes;
Or mark the ‘gradual dusky veil’
Drawn over Tempe’s tuneful vale,
In classic lays remember’d long —
Such flights to bolder wings belong;
To Bards who on that glorious height,
Of sun and song, Parnassus hight,
Partake the fire divine that burns,
In Milton, Pope, and Scottish Burns,
Who sang his native braes and burns.
For me a novice strange and new,
Who ne’er such inspiration knew,
But weave a verse with travail sore,
Ordain’d to creep and not to soar,
A few poor lines alone I write,
Fulfilling thus a friendly rite,
Not meant to meet the Critic’s eye,
For oh! to hope from such as I,
For anything that’s fit to read,
Were trusting to a broken reed!
1st of April, 1840. E. M. G.
EPIGRAM ON THE CHINESE TREATY
Our wars are ended — foreign battles cease, —
Great Britain owns an universal peace;
And Queen Victoria triumphs over all,
Still ‘Mistress of herself’ though China fall!
THE SEASON
Summer’s gone and over!
Fogs are falling down;
And with russet tinges
Autumn’s doing brown.
Boughs are daily rifled
By the gusty thieves,
And the Book of Nature
Getteth short of leaves.
Round the tops of houses,
Swallows, as they flit,
Give, like yearly tenants,
Notices to quit.
Skies, of fickle temper,
Weep by turns, and laugh —
Night and Day together
Taking half-and-half.
So September endeth —
Cold, and most perverse —
But the month that follows
Sure will pinch us worse!
THE UNIVERSITY FEUD
As latterly I chanced to pass
A Public House, from which, alas!
The Arms of Oxford dangle!
My ear was startled by a din,
That made me tremble in my skin,
A dreadful hubbub from within,
Of voices in a wrangle —
Voices loud, and voices high,
With now and then a party-cry,
Such as used in times gone by
To scare the British border;
When foes from North and South of Tweed —
Neighbours — and of Christian creed —
Met in hate to fight and bleed,
Upsetting Social Order.
Surpris’d I turn’d me to the crowd,
Attracted by that tumult loud,
And ask’d a gazer, beetle brow’d,
The cause of such disquiet.
When lo! the solemn-looking man,
First shook his head on Burleigh’s plan,
And then, with fluent tongue, began
His version of the riot:
A row! why yes, a pretty row, you might hear from this to Garmany,
And what is worse, it’s all got up among the Sons of Harmony,
The more’s the shame for them as used to be in time and tune,
And all unite in chorus like the singing-birds in June!
Ah! many a pleasant chant I’ve heard in passing here along,
When Swiveller was President a-knocking down a song;
But Dick’s resign’d the post, you see, and all them shouts and hollers
Is ‘cause two other candidates, some sort of larned scholars,
Are squabbling to be Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!
Lord knows their names, I’m sure I don’t, no more than any yokel,
But I never heard of either as connected with the vocal;
Nay, some do say, although of course the public rumour varies,
They’ve no more warble in ‘em than a pair of hen canaries;
Though that might pass if they were dabs at t’other sort of thing,
For a man may make a song, you know, although he cannot sing;
But lork! it’s many folk’s belief they’re only good at prosing,
For Catnach swears he never saw a verse of their composing;
And when a piece of poetry has stood its public trials,
If pop’lar, it gets printed off at once in Seven Dials,
And then about all sorts of streets, by every little monkey,
It’s chanted like the ‘Dog’s Meat Man,’ or ‘If I had a Donkey.’
Whereas, as Mr. Catnach says, and not a bad judge neither,
No ballad worth a ha’penny has ever come from either,
And him as writ ‘Jim Crow,’ he says, and got such lots of dollars,
Would make a better Chairman for the Glorious Apollers.
Howsomever that’s the meaning of the squabble that arouses
This neighbourhood, and quite disturbs all decent Heads of Houses,
Who want to have their di
nners and their parties, as is reason,
In Christian peace and charity according to the season.
But from Number Thirty-Nine — since this electioneering job,
Ay, as far as Number Ninety, there’s an everlasting mob;
Till the thing is quite a nuisance, for no creature passes by,
But he gets a card, a pamphlet, or a summut in his eye;
And a pretty noise there is! — what with canvassers and spouters,
For in course each side is furnish’d with its backers and its touters;
And surely among the Clergy to such pitches it is carried,
You can hardly find a Parson to get buried or get married;
Or supposing any accident that suddenly alarms,
If you’re dying for a surgeon, you must fetch him from the ‘Arms’:
While the Schoolmasters and Tooters are neglecting of their scholars,
To write about a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers.
Well, that, sir, is the racket; and the more the sin and shame
Of them that help to stir it up, and propagate the same;
Instead of vocal ditties, and the social flowing cup, —
But they’ll be the House’s ruin, or the shutting of it up,
With their riots and their hubbubs, like a garden full of bears,
While they’ve damaged many articles and broken lots of squares,
And kept their noble Club Room in a perfect dust and smother,
By throwing Morning Heralds, Times, and Standards at each other;
Not to name the ugly language Gemmen oughtn’t to repeat,
And the names they call each other — for I’ve heard ‘em in the street
Such as Traitors, Guys, and Judases, and Vipers, and what not,
For Pasley and h s divers ain’t so blowing-up a lot.
And then such awful swearing! — for there’s one of them that cusses
Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition ‘busses;
For he cusses every member that’s agin him at the poll,
As I wouldn’t cuss a donkey, tho’ it hasn’t got a soul;
And he cusses all their families, Jack, Harry, Bob or Jim,
To the babby in the cradle, if they don’t agree with him.
Whereby, altho’ as yet they have not took to use their fives,
Or, according as the fashion is, to sticking with their knives,
I’m bound there’ll be some milling yet, and shakings by the collars,
Afore they choose a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!
To be sure it is a pity to be blowing such a squall,
Instead of clouds, and every man his song, and then his call —
And as if there wasn’t Whigs enough and Tories to fall out,
Besides politics in plenty for our splits to be about, —
Why, a cornfield is sufficient, sir, as anybody knows,
For to furnish them in plenty who are fond of picking crows —
Not to name the Maynooth Catholics, and other Irish stews,
To agitate society and loosen all its screws;
And which all may be agreeable and proper to their spheres, —
But it’s not the thing for musicals to set us by the ears.
And as to College laming, my opinion for to broach,
And I’ve had it from my cousin, and he driv a college coach,
And so knows the University, and all as there belongs,
And he says that Oxford’s famouser for sausages than songs,
And seldom turns a poet out like Hudson that can chant,
As well as make such ditties as the Free and Easies want,
Or other Tavern Melodists I can’t just call to mind —
But it’s not the classic system for to propagate the kind,
Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars
May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!
For my part in the matter, if so be I had a voice,
It’s the best among the vocalists I’d honour with the choice;
Or a poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch;
Or at any rate the surest hand at mixing of the punch;
‘Cause why, the members meet for that and other tuneful frolics —
And not to say, like Muffincaps, their Catichiz and Collec’s.
But you see them there Itinerants that preach so long and loud,
And always takes advantage like the prigs of any crowd,
Have brought their jangling voices, and as far as they can compass,
Have turn’d a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus,
And him as knows most hymns — altho’ I can’t see how it follers —
They want to be the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!
Well, that’s the row — and who can guess the upshot after all?
Whether Harmony will ever make the ‘Arms’ her House of call,
Or whether this here mobbing — as some longish heads foretell it,
Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it.
Howsomever, for the present, there’s no sign of any peace,
For the hubbub keeps a-growing, and defies the New Police; —
But if I was in the Vestry, and a leading sort of Man,
Or a Member of the Vocals, to get backers for my plan,
Why, I’d settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle,
For I’d have another candidate — and that’s the Parish Beadle,
Who makes such lots of Poetry, himself, or else by proxy,
And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy;
Whereby — if folks was wise — instead of either of them Scholars,
And straining their own lungs along of contradictious hollers,
They’ll lend their ears to reason, and take my advice as follers,
Namely — Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!
ON THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
TAKEN BY THE DAGUERREOTYPE
Yes, there are her features! her brow, and her hair,
And her eyes, with a look so seraphic,
Her nose, and her mouth, with the smile that is there,
Truly caught by the Art Photographic!
Yet why should she borrow such aid of the skies,
When by many a bosom’s confession,
Her own lovely face, and the light of her eyes,
Are sufficient to make an impression?
THE LEE SHORE
Sleet! and hail! and thunder!
And ye Winds that rave,
Till the sands thereunder
Tinge the sullen wave, —
Winds that, like a Demon,
Howl with horrid note
Round the toiling Seaman
In his tossing boat —
From his humble dwelling,
On the shingly shore,
Where the billows swelling
Keep such hollow roar —
From that weeping Woman,
Seeking with her cries,
Succour superhuman
From the frowning skies —
From the Urchin pining
For his Father’s knee,
From the lattice shining
Drive him out to sea!
Let broad leagues dissever
Him from yonder foam —
O God! to think Man ever
Comes too near his Home.
EPIGRAM: ON THE DEPRECIATED MONEY
They may talk of the plugging and sweating
Of our coinage that’s minted of gold,
But to me it produces no fretting
Of its shortness of weight to be told:
All the sov’reigns I’m able to levy
As to lightness can never be wrong,
But must surely be some of the heavy,
For I never can carry them long.
THE TURTLES
A FABLE
‘The rage of the vulture, the love
of the turtle.’ — Byron.
One day, it was before a civic dinner,
Two London Aldermen, no matter which,
Cordwainer, Girdler, Patten-maker,
Skinner —
But both were florid, corpulent, and rich,
And both right fond of festive demolition,
Set forth upon a secret expedition.
Yet not, as might be fancied from the token,
To Pudding Lane, Pie Corner, or the Street
Of Bread or Grub or anything to eat,
Or Drink, as Milk, or Viutry, or Portsoken,
But eastward to that more aquatic quarter,
Where folks take water,
Or bound on voyages, secure a berth
For Antwerp or Ostend, Dundee or
Perth,
Calais, Boulogne, or any Port on earth!
Jostled and jostling, through the mud,
Peculiar to the Town of Lud,
Down narrow streets and crooked lanes they dived,
Past many a gusty avenue, through which
Came yellow fog, and smell of pitch,
From barge, and boat, and dusky wharf derived;
With darker fumes, brought eddying by the draught,
From loco-smoko-motive craft;
Mingling with scents of butter, cheese, and gammons,
Tea, coffee, sugar, pickles, rosin, wax,
Hides, tallow, Russia-matting, hemp and flax,
Salt-cod, red-herrings, sprats, and kipper’d salmons,
Nuts, oranges, and lemons,
Each pungent spice, and aromatic gum,
Gas, pepper, soaplees, brandy, gin, and rum;
Alamode-beef and greens — the London soil —
Glue, coal, tobacco, turpentine and oil,
Bark assafcetida, squills, vitriol, hops,
In short, all whiffs, and sniffs, and puffs, and snuffs,
From metals, minerals, and dyewood stuffs,
Fruits, victual, drink, solidities, or slops —
In flasks, casks, bales, trucks, waggons, taverns, shops,
Boats, lighters, cellars, wharfs, and warehouse-tops,
