Thomas Hood- Collected Poetical Works

by Thomas Hood

  And that’s the Farming of the Poor!’

  Hodge, Dickon, Giles, Hob, and Simon.

  ‘Yea! — aye! — surely! — for sartin! — yes! —

  That’s Hagricultural Distress!’

  LOVE LANE

  If I should love a maiden more,

  And woo her ev’ry hope to crown,

  I’d love her all the country o’er,

  But not declare it out of town.

  One even by a mossy bank,

  That held a hornet’s nest within,

  To Ellen on my knees I sank —

  How snakes will twine around the shin!

  A bashful fear my soul unnerv’d,

  And gave my heart a backward tug;

  Nor was I cheer’d when she observ’d,

  Whilst I was silent, ‘What a slug!’

  At length my offer I preferr’d,

  And Hope a kind reply forebode —

  Alas the only sound I heard

  Was, ‘What a horrid ugly toad!’

  I vow’d to give her all my heart,

  To love her till my life took leave,

  And painted all a lover’s smart —

  Except a wasp gone up his sleeve!

  But when I ventur’d to abide

  Her father’s and her mother’s grants —

  Sudden, she started up, and cried,

  ‘O dear! I am all over ants!’

  Nay, when beginning to beseech

  The cause that led to my rebuff,

  The answer was as strange a speech,

  ‘A Daddy-Longlegs sure enough!’

  I spoke of fortune — house, and lands,

  And still renew’d the warm attack,

  ’Tis vain to offer ladies hands

  That have a spider on the back!

  ’Tis vain to talk of hopes and fears

  And hope the least reply to win,

  From any maid that stops her ears

  In dread of earwigs creeping in!

  ’Tis vain to call the dearest names

  Whilst stoats and weazels startle by —

  As vain to talk of mutual flames,

  To one with glow-worms in her eye!

  What check’d me in my fond address,

  And knock’d each pretty image down?

  What stopp’d my Ellen’s faltering Yes?

  A caterpillar on her gown!

  To list to Philomel is sweet —

  To see the Moon rise silver-pale,

  But not to kneel at Lady’s feet

  And crush a rival in a snail!

  Sweet is the eventide, and kind

  Its zephyr, balmy as the south; —

  But sweeter still to speak your mind

  Without a chafer in your mouth.

  At last embolden’d by my bliss,

  Still fickle Fortune play’d me foul,

  For when I strove to snatch a kiss

  She scream’d — by proxy through an owl!

  Then, Lovers, doom’d to life or death

  Shun moonlight, twilight, lanes, and bats,

  Lest you should have in selfsame breath

  To bless your fate — and curse the gnats! —

  ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ.

  TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATHÈNÆUM

  My dear Sir — The following Ode was written anticipating the tone of some

  strictures on my writings, by the gentleman to whom it is addressed. I have not seen

  his book; but I know by hearsay that some of my verses are characterized as

  ‘profaneness and ribaldry ‘ — citing, in proof, the description of a certain sow, from

  whose jaw a cabbage sprout —

  ‘Protruded, as the dove so staunch

  For peace supports an olive branch.’

  If the printed works of my Censor had not prepared me for any misapplication of

  types, I should have been surprised by this misapprehension of one of the commonest

  emblems. In some cases the dove unquestionably stands for the Divine Spirit; but

  the same bird is also a lay representative of the peace of this world, and, as such, has

  figured time out of mind in allegorical pictures. The sense in which it was used by

  me is plain from the context; at least, it would be plain to any one but a fisher for

  faults, pre-disposcd to carp at some things, to dab at others, and to flounder in all.

  But I am possibly in error. It is the female swine, perhaps, that is profaned in the

  eyes of the Oriental tourist. Men find strange ways of marking their intolerance; and

  the spirit is certainly strong enough, in Mr. W.’s works, to set up a creature as sacred,

  in sheer opposition to the Mussulman, with whom she is a beast of abomination. It

  would only be going the whole sow. — I am, dear Sir, yours very truly,

  — Thos. Hood.

  ‘Close, close your eyes with holy dread,

  And weave a circle round him thrice; —

  For he on honey-dew hath fed,

  And drunk the milk of Paradise!’ — Coleridge.

  ‘It’s very hard them kind of men

  Won’t let a body be.’ — Old Ballad.

  A wanderer, Wilson, from my native land,

  Remote, O Rae, from godliness and thee,

  Where rolls between us the eternal sea,

  Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand,

  Beyond the broadest Scotch of London Wall;

  Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call;

  Across the wavy waste between us stretch’d,

  A friendly missive warns me of a stricture,

  Wherein my likeness you have darkly etch’d,

  And tho’ I have not seen the shadow sketch’d,

  Thus I remark prophetic on the picture.

  I guess the features: — in a line to paint

  Their moral ugliness, I’m not a saint.

  Not one of those self-constituted saints,

  Quacks — not physicians — in the cure of souls,

  Censors who sniff out mortal taints,

  And call the devil over his own coals —

  Those pseudo Privy Councillors of God,

  Who write down judgments with a pen hard-nibb’d;

  Ushers of Beelzebub’s Black Rod,

  Commending sinners, not to ice thick-ribb’d,

  But endless flames, to scorch them up like flax,

  Yet sure of heav’n themselves, as if they’d cribb’d

  Th’ impression of St. Peter’s keys in wax!

  Of such a character no single trace

  Exists, I know, in my fictitious face;

  There wants a certain cast about the eye;

  A certain lifting of the nose’s tip;

  A certain curling of the nether lip,

  In scorn of all that is, beneath the sky; —

  In brief it is an aspect deleterious,

  A face decidedly not serious,

  A face profane, that would not do at all

  To make a face at Exeter Hall,

  That Hall where bigots rant, and cant, and pray,

  And laud each other face to face,

  Till ev’ry farthing-candle ray

  Conceives itself a great gas-light of grace!

  Well! — be the graceless lineaments contest!

  I do enjoy this bounteous beauteous earth; —

  And dote upon a jest

  ‘Within the limits of becoming mirth’; —

  No solemn sanctimonious face I pull,

  Nor think I’m pious when I’m only bilious —

  Nor study in my sanctum supercilious

  To frame a Sabbath Bill or forge a Bull.

  I pray for grace — repent each sinful act —

  Peruse, but underneath the rose, my Bible;

  And love my neighbour, far too well, in fact,

  To call and twit him with a godly tract

  That’s turn’d by application to a libel.

  My he
art ferments not with the bigot’s leaven,

  All creeds I view with toleration thorough,

  And have a horror of regarding heaven

  As anybody’s rotten borough.

  What else? no part I take in party fray,

  With tropes from Billingsgate’s slang-whanging tartars,

  I fear no Pope — and let great Ernest play

  At Fox and Goose with Fox’s Martyrs!

  I own I laugh at over-righteous men,

  I own I shake my sides at ranters,

  And treat sham-Abr’am saints with wicked banters,

  I even own, that there are times — but then

  It’s when I’ve got my wine — I say d —— —— canters!

  I’ve no ambition to enact the spy

  On fellow souls, a Spiritual Pry —

  ’Tis said that people ought to guard their noses

  Who thrust them into matters none of theirs;

  And tho’ no delicacy discomposes

  Your Saint, yet I consider faith and pray’rs —

  Amongst the privatest of men’s affairs.

  I do not hash the Gospel in my books,

  And thus upon the public mind intrude it,

  As if I thought, like Otaheitan cooks,

  No food was fit to eat till I had chew’d it.

  On Bible stilts I don’t affect to stalk;

  Nor lard with Scripture my familiar talk,

  For man may pious texts repeat,

  And yet religion have no inward seat;

  ’Tis not so plain as the old Hill of Howth,

  A man has got his bellyfull of meat

  Because he talks with victuals in his mouth!

  Mere verbiage, it is not worth a carrot!

  Why, Socrates or Plato — where’s the odds? —

  Once taught a jay to supplicate the Gods,

  And made a Polly-theist of a Parrot!

  A mere professor, spite of all his cant, is

  Not a whit better than a Mantis,

  An insect, of what clime I can’t determine,

  That lifts its paws most parson-like, and thence,

  By simple savages — thro’ sheer pretence —

  Is reckon’d quite a saint amongst the vermin.

  But where’s the reverence, or where the nous,

  To ride on one’s religion thro’ the lobby,

  Whether as stalking-horse or hobby,

  To show its pious paces to’ the House’?

  I honestly confess that I would hinder

  The Scottish member’s legislative rigs,

  That spiritual Pinder,

  Who looks on erring souls as straying pigs,

  That must be lash’d by law, wherever found,

  And driv’n to church, as to the parish pound.

  I do confess, without reserve or wheedle,

  I view that grovelling idea as one

  Worthy some parish clerk’s ambitious son,

  A charity-boy who longs to be a beadle.

  On such a vital topic sure ’tis odd

  How much a man can differ from his neighbour:

  One wishes worship freely giv’n to God,

  Another wants to make it statute-labour —

  The broad distinction in a line to draw,

  As means to lead us to the skies above,

  You say — Sir Andrew and his love of law,

  And I — the Saviour with his law of love.

  Spontaneously to God should tend the soul,

  Like the magnetic needle to the Pole;

  But what were that intrinsic virtue worth,

  Suppose some fellow, with more zeal than knowledge,

  Fresh from St. Andrew’s College,

  Should nail the conscious needle to the north?

  I do confess that I abhor and shrink

  From schemes, with a religious willy-nilly,

  That frown upon St. Giles’s sins, but blink

  The peccadilloes of all Piccadilly —

  My soul revolts at such a bare hypocrisy,

  And will not, dare not, fancy in accord

  The Lord of Hosts with an Exclusive Lord

  Of this world’s aristocracy.

  It will not own a notion so unholy,

  As thinking that the rich by easy trips

  May go to heav’n, whereas the poor and lowly

  Must work their passage, as they do in ships.

  One place there is — beneath the burial sod

  Where all mankind are equalized by death;

  Another place there is — the Fane of God,

  Where all are equal, who draw living breath; —

  Juggle who will elsewhere with his own soul,

  Playing the Judas with a temporal dole —

  He who can come beneath that awful cope,

  In the dread presence of a Maker just,

  Who metes to ev’ry pinch of human dust

  One even measure of immortal hope —

  He who can stand within that holy door,

  With soul unbow’d by that pure spirit-level,

  And frame unequal laws for rich and poor,

  Might sit for Hell and represent the Devil!

  Such are the solemn sentiments, O Rae,

  In your last Journey-Work, perchance, you ravage,

  Seeming, but in more courtly terms, to say

  I’m but a heedless, creedless, godless savage; —

  A very Guy, deserving fire and faggots,

  A Scoffer, always on the grin,

  And sadly given to the mortal sin

  Of liking Mawworms less than merry maggots I

  The humble records of my life to search,

  I have not herded with mere pagan beasts;

  But sometimes I have ‘sat at good men’s feasts,’

  And I have been ‘where bells have knoll’d to church.’

  Dear bells! how sweet the sounds of village bells

  When on the undulating air they swim!

  Now loud as welcomes! faint, now, as farewells!

  And trembling all about the breezy dells

  As flutter’d by the wings of Cherubim.

  Meanwhile the bees are chaunting a low hymn;

  And lost to sight th’ ecstatic lark above

  Sings, like a soul beatified, of love,

  With, now and then, the coo of the wild pigeon; —

  O Pagans, Heathens, Infidels and Doubters!

  If such sweet sounds can’t woo you to religion,

  Will the harsh voices of church cads and touters?

  A man may cry ‘Church! Church!’ at ev’ry word,

  With no more piety than other people —

  A daw’s not reckon’d a religious bird

  Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple.

  The Temple is a good, a holy place,

  But quacking only gives it an ill savour;

  While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace,

  And bring religion’s self into disfavour!

  Behold you servitor of God and Mammon,

  Who, binding up his Bible with his Ledger,

  Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon,

  A black-leg saint, a spiritual hedger,

  Who backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak,

  Against the wicked remnant of the week,

  A saving bet against his sinful bias —

  ‘Rogue that I am,’ he whispers to himself,

  ‘I lie — I cheat — do anything for pelf,

  But who on earth can say I am not pious?’

  In proof how over-righteousness re-acts,

  Accept an anecdote well bas’d on facts.

  One Sunday morning — (at the day don’t fret) —

  In riding with a friend to Ponder’s End

  Outside the stage, we happen’d to commend

  A certain mansion that we saw To Let.

  ‘Aye,’ cried our coachman, with our talk to grapple,

  ‘You’re right! no house along the road comes nigh it!

 
’Twas built by the same man as built you chapel,”

  And master wanted once to buy it,

  But t’other driv the bargain much too hard —

  He ax’d surely a sum purdigious!

  But being so particular religious,

  Why, that, you see, put master on his guard!’

  Church is ‘a little heav’n below,

  I have been there and still would go,’ —

  Yet I am none of those, who think it odd

  A man can pray unbidden from the cassock,

  And, passing by the customary hassock,

  Kneel down remote upon the simple sod,

  And sue in formâ pauperis to God.

  As for the rest, intolerant to none,

  Whatever shape the pious rite may bear,

  Ev’n the poor Pagan’s homage to the Sun

  I would not harshly scorn, lest even there

  I spurn’d some elements of Christian pray’r —

  An aim, tho’ erring, at a ‘world ayont’ —

  Acknowledgment of good — of man’s futility,

  A sense of need, and weakness, and indeed

  That very thing so many Christians want —

  Humility.

  Such, unto Papists, Jews or turban’d Turks,

  Such is my spirit — (I don’t mean my wraith!)

  Such, may it please you, is my humble faith;

  I know, full well, you do not like my works!

  I have not sought, ’tis true, the Holy Land,

  As full of texts as Cuddie Headrigg’s mother,

  The Bible in one hand,

  And my own common-place-book in the other —

  But you have been to Palestine — alas!

  Some minds improve by travel, others, rather,

  Resemble copper wire, or brass,

  Which gets the narrower by going farther!

  Worthless are all such Pilgrimages — very!

  If Palmers at the Holy Tomb contrive

  The human heats and rancour to revive

  That at the Sepulchre they ought to bury.

  A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on,

  To see a Christian creature graze at Sion,

  Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full,