by Thomas Hood
Go eat and drink, and give your hearts to mirth; —
For vainly ye contend;
Before you can decide about its birth,
The world will have an end!’
DEATH IN THE KITCHEN
‘Are we not here now?’ continued the corporal (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly on the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability)—’ and are we not’ (dropping his hat upon the ground) ‘gone? — In a moment!’ — Tristram Shandy.
Trim, thou art right!— ’Tis sure that I,
And all who hear thee, are to die.
The stoutest lad and wench
Must lose their places at the will
Of Death, and go at last to fill
The sexton’s gloomy trench.
The dreary grave! — O, when I think
How close we stand upon its brink,
My inward spirit groans!
My eyes are filled with dismal dreams
Of coffins, and this kitchen seems
A charnel full of bones!
Yes, jovial butler, thou must fail,
As sinks the froth on thine own ale;
Thy days will soon be done!
Alas! the common hours that strike,
Are knells, for life keeps wasting, like
A cask upon the run.
Ay, hapless scullion! ’tis thy case,
Life travels at a scouring pace,
Far swifter than thy hand.
The fast-decaying frame of man
Is but a kettle or a pan
Time wears away with — sand!
Thou needst not, mistress cook! be told,
The meat to-morrow will be cold
That now is fresh and hot:
E’en thus our flesh will, by and by,
Be cold as stone: — Cook, thou must die,
There’s death within the pot.
Susannah, too, my lady’s maid,
Thy pretty person once must aid
To swell the buried swarm!
The ‘glass of fashion’ thou wilt hold
No more, but grovel in the mould
That’s not the ‘mould of form!’
Yes, Jonathan, that drives the coach,
He too will feel the fiend’s approach —
The grave will pluck him down:
He must in dust and ashes lie,
And wear the churchyard livery,
Grass green, turn’d up with brown.
How frail is our uncertain breath!
The laundress seems full hale, but Death
Shall her ‘last linen’ bring.
The groom will die, like all his kind;
And e’en the stable boy will find
This life no stable thing.
Nay, see the household dog — even that
The earth shall take; — the very cat
Will share the common fall;
Although she hold (the proverb saith)
A ninefold life, one single death
Suffices for them all!
Cook, butler, Susan, Jonathan,
The girl that scours the pot and pan,
And those that tend the steeds —
All, all shall have another sort
Of service after This; — in short —
The one the parson reads! —
The dreary grave! — O, when I think
How close we stand upon its brink,
My inward spirit groans!
My eyes are filled with dismal dreams
Of coffins, and this kitchen seems
A charnel full of bones!
EPISTLE TO MISS CHARLOTTE REYNOLDS
My dear Lot,
There’s a blot! —
This is to write
That Sunday night
By the late
Coach at eight,
We shall get in
To little Britain,
So have handy
Gin, rum, Brandy —
A lobster, may be —
Cucumbers, they be
Also in season
And within reason —
Porter — by Gum!
Against we come —
In lieu of Friday
Then we keep high day
And holy, as long as
We can. I get strong as —
A horse — i.e., pony
Jane tho’ keeps boney.
How is your mother,
Still with your brother,
And Marian too —
And that good man too
Call’d your papa, Miss.
After these ah Miss!
Don’t say I never
Made an endeavour —
To write you verses
Tho’ this lay worse is
Than any I’ve written
The truth is, I’ve sitten
So long over letters
Addressed to your betters
That — that — that
Some how —
My pen —
Amen.
T. Hood.
[July 11, 1828.]
ON THE DEATH OF THE GIRAFFE
They say, God wot!
She died upon the spot:
But then in spots she was so rich,
I wonder which?
ON THE REMOVAL OF A MENAGERIE
Let Exeter Change lament its change,
Its beasts and other losses —
Another place thrives by its case,
Now Charing has two Crosses.
BIRTHDAY VERSES
Good-morrow to the golden Morning!
Good-morrow to the world’s delight!
I’ve come to bless thy life’s beginning,
That hath made my own so bright! I
I have brought no roses, Dearest!
Summer lies upon her bier;
It was when all sweets were over
Thou wert born to bless the year.
But I bring thee jewels, Fairest!
In thy bonny locks to shine;
And, if love seem in their glances,
They have learn’d that look of mine!
THE FAREWELL
TO A FRENCH AIR
Fare thee well,
Gabrielle!
Whilst I join France
With bright cuirass and lance!
Trumpets swell,
Gabrielle!
War-horses prance,
And cavaliers advance!
In the night,
Ere the fight,
In the night
I’ll think of thee!
And in prayer,
Lady fair,
In thy prayer
Then think of me!
Death may knell,
Gabrielle!
Where my plumes dance
By arquebuss or lance,
Then farewell,
Gabrielle!
Take my last glance,
Fair Miracle of France.
ON A PICTURE OF HERO AND LEANDER
Why, Love, why
Such a Water-rover?
Would she love thee more
For coming half seas over?
Why, Lady, why
So in love with dipping?
Must a lad of Greece
Come all over dripping?
Why, Cupid, why
Make the passage brighter?
Were not any boat
Better than a lighter?
Why, Maiden, why
So intrusive standing?
Must thou be on the stair,
When he’s on the landing?
FOR THE FOURTEENTH OF FEBRUARY
No popular respect will I omit
To do thee honour on this happy day,
When every loyal lover tasks his wit
His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay,
And to his mistress dear his hopes convey.
Rather, thou knowest, I would still outrun
All calendars with Love’s, whose date alway
Thy b
right eyes govern better than the sun,
For with thy favour was my life begun;
And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles,
And not by summers, for I thrive on none
But those thy cheerful countenance compiles —
Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine,
Love, thou art every day my Valentine!
A BUNCH OF FORGET-ME-NOTS
Forget me not! It is the cry of clay,
From infancy to age, from ripe to rotten;
For who, ‘to dumb forgetfulness a prey,’
Would be forgotten?
Hark the poor infant, in the age of pap,
A little Laplander on nurse’s lap,
Some strange, neglectful, gossiping old Trot,
Meanwhile on dull Oblivion’s lap she lieth,
In her shrill Baby-lonish language crieth —
What?— ‘Forget-me-not!’
The schoolboy writes unto the self-same tune,
The yearly letter, guiltless of a blot,
‘We break up on the twenty-third of June’;
And then, with comps, from Dr. Polyglot,
‘P.S. Forget me not!’
When last my elder brother sailed for Quito,
My chalky foot had in a hobble got —
Why did he plant his timber toe on my toe,
To stamp on memory’s most tender spot
‘Forget me not!’
The dying nabob, on whose shrivelled skin
The Indian ‘mulliga’ has left its ‘tawny,’
Leaving life’s pilgrimage so rough and thorny,
Bindeth his kin
Two tons of sculptured marble to allot —
A small ‘Forget me not!’
The hardy sailor parting from his wives,
Sharing among them all that he has got,
Keeps a fond eye upon their after-lives,
And says to seventeen—’ If I am shot,
Forget me not.’
Why, all the mob of authors that now trouble
The world with cold-pressed volumes and with hot,
They all are seeking reputation’s bubble,
Hopelessly hoping, like Sir Walter Scott,
To tie in fame’s own handkerchief a double
Forget-me-knot!
A past past tense,
In fact, is sought for by all human kind,
And hence
Our common Irish wish — to leave ourselves behind.
Forget me not! — It is the common chorus
Swell’d by all those behind us and before us;
Each fifth of each November
Calls out ‘Remember!’
And even a poor man of straw will try
To live by dint of powder and of plot.
In short, it is the cry of every Guy —
‘Forget me not!’
THE POET’S PORTION
What is a mine — a treasury — a dower —
A magic talisman of mighty power?
A poet’s wide possession of the earth:
He has th’ enjoyment of a flower’s birth
Before its budding — ere the first red streaks,
And winter cannot rob him of their cheeks.
Look if his dawn be not ere other men’s!
Twenty bright flushes — ere another kens
The first of sunlight is abroad, he sees
Its gold election of the topmost trees,
And opes the splendid fissures of the morn.
When do his fruits delay? When doth his corn
Linger for harvesting? Before the leaf
Is commonly abroad, in his piled sheaf
The flagging poppies lose their ardent flame.
No sweet there is, no pleasure you can name,
But he will sip it first — before the lees; —
’Tis his to taste rich honey ere the bees
Are busy with the brooms: he may forestal
June’s rpsy advent for his coronal,
Before expectance buds upon the bough,
Twining his thoughts to bloom upon his brow.
Oh! blest to see the flower in its seed,
Before its leafy presence; for, indeed,
Leaves are but wings on which the summer flies,
And each thing, perishable, fades and dies,
Except in thought; but his rich thinkings be
Like overflows of immortality —
So that what there is steeped shall perish never,
But live and bloom, and be a joy for ever! —
I’Μ NOT A SINGLE MAN
LINES WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY’S ALBUM
A pretty task, Miss S —— , to ask
A Benedictine pen,
That cannot quite at freedom write
Like those of other men.
No lover’s plaint my Muse must paint
To fill this page’s span,
But be correct and recollect
I’m not a single man.
Pray only think, for pen and ink
How hard to get along,
That may not turn on words that burn
Or Love, the life of song!
Nine Muses, if I chooses, I
May woo all in a clan,
But one Miss S — I daren’t address —
I’m not a single man.
Scribblers unwed, with little head
May eke it out with heart,
And in their lays it often plays
A rare first-fiddle part.
They make a kiss to rhyme with bliss,
But if I so began,
I have my fears about my ears —
I’m not a single man.
Upon your cheek I may not speak,
Nor on your lip be warm,
I must be wise about your eyes,
And formal with your form;
Of all that sort of thing, in short,
On T. H. Bayly’s plan,
I must not twine a single line —
I’m not a single man.
A watchman’s part compels my heart
To keep you off its beat,
And I might dare as soon to swear
At you, as at your feet.
I can’t expire in passion’s fire
As other poets can —
My life (she’s by) won’t let me die —
I’m not a single man. —
Shut out from love, denied a dove,
Forbidden bow and dart,
Without a groan to call my own,
With neither hand nor heart;
To Hymen vow’d, and not allow’d
To flirt e’en with your fan,
Here end, as just a friend, I must —
I’m not a single man.
PLAYING AT SOLDIERS
‘Who’ll serve the King?’
What little urchin is there never
Hath had that early scarlet fever,
Of martial trappings caught?
Trappings well called — because they trap
And catch full many a country chap
To go where fields are fought!
What little urchin with a rag
Hath never made a little flag
(Our plate will shew the manner),
And wooed each tiny neighbour still,
Tommy or Harry, Dick or Will,
To come beneath the banner!
Just like that ancient shape of mist,
In Hamlet, crying “List, O ‘list!’
Come, who will serve the king,
And strike frog-eating Frenchmen dead
And cut off Boneyparty’s head? —
And all that sort of thing.
So used I, when I was a boy,
To march with military toy,
And ape the soldier-life;
And with a whistle or a hum,
I thought myself a Duke of Drum
At least, or Earl of Fife.
With gun of tin and sword of lath,
Lord! ho
w I walk’d in glory’s path
With regimental mates,
By sound of trump and rub-a-dubs,
To ‘siege the washhouse — charge the tubs —
Or storm the garden gates! —
Ah me! my retrospective soul!
As over memory’s muster-roll
I cast my eyes anew,
My former comrades all the while
Rise up before me, rank and file,
And form in dim review.
Ay, there they stand, and dress in line,
Lubbock, and Fenn, and David Vine,
And dark ‘Jamakey Forde!’
And limping Wood, and ‘Cocky Hawes,’ —
Our captain always made, because
He had a real sword!
Long Lawrence, Natty Smart, and Soame,
Who said he had a gun at home,
But that was all a brag;
Ned Ryder, too, that used to sham
A prancing horse, and big Sam Lamb
That would hold up the flag!
Tom Anderson, and ‘Dunny White,’
Who never right-abouted right,
For he was deaf and dumb;
Jack Pike, Jem Crack, and Sandy Gray
And Dickey Bird, that wouldn’t play
Unless he had the drum.
And Peter Holt, and Charley Jepp,
A chap that never kept the step —
No more did ‘Surly Hugh;’
Bob Harrington, and ‘Fighting Jim’ —
We often had to halt for him,
To let him tie his shoe. —
‘Quarrelsome Scott,’ and Martin Dick,
That killed the bantam cock, to stick
The plumes within his hat;
Bill Hook, and little Tommy Grout
That got so thumped for calling out
‘Eyes right!’ to ‘Squinting Matt.’
Dan Simpson, that, with Peter Dodd,
Was always in the awkward squad,
