by Thomas Hood
And you’ll never set sail, some fine morning,
To seek any sort of a Pole.
It’s not for the ice-bergs and freezing,
Or dangers you’ll have for to court,
It’s the shocks, very hard and unpleasing,
You’ll meet on returning to port!
STANZAS COMPOSED IN A SHOWER-BATH
‘Drip, drip, drip — there’s nothing here
but dripping.’ — Remorse, by Coleridge.
Trembling, as Father Adam stood
To pull the stalk, before the Fall,
So I stand here, before the Flood,
On my own head the shock to call:
How like our predecessor’s luck!
’Tis but to pluck — but needs some pluck!
Still thoughts of gasping like a pup
Will paralyse the nervous pow’r;
Now hoping it will yet hold up,
Invoking now the tumbling show’r; —
But, ah! the shrinking body loathes,
Without a parapluie or clothes!
‘Expect some rain about this time!’
My eyes are seal’d, my teeth are set —
But where’s the Stoic so sublime
Can ring unmov’d, for wringing wet?
Of going hogs some folks talk big —
Just let them try the whole cold pig!
CLUBS TURNED UP BY A FEMALE HAND
‘Clubs! Clubs! part’em! part’em! Clubs! Clubs!’ — Ancient Cries of London.
Of all the modern schemes of Man,
That time has brought to bear,
A plague upon the wicked plan
That parts the wedded pair!
My female friends they all agree
They hardly know their hubs;
And heart and voice unite with me,
‘We hate the name of Clubs!’
One selfish course the Wretches keep;
They come at morning chimes,
To snatch a few short hours of sleep —
Rise — breakfast — read the Times —
Then take their hats, and post away,
Like Clerks or City scrubs,
And no one sees them all the day,
They live, eat, drink, at Clubs!
On what they say, and what they do,
They close the Club-House gates;
But one may guess a speech or two,
Though shut from their debates:
‘The Cook’s a hasher — nothing more
The Children noisy grubs —
A Wife’s a quiz, and home’s a bore’ —
Yes, that’s the style at Clubs!
With Rundle, Dr. K., or Glasse,
And such Domestic Books,
They once put up — but now, alas!
It’s hey! for foreign cooks!
‘When will you dine at home, my Dove?’
I say to Mister Stubbs,
‘When Cook can make an omelette, love,
An omelette like the Club’s!’
Time was, their hearts were only placed
On snug domestic schemes,
The book for two — united taste,
And such connubial dreams,
Friends dropping in at close of day
To singles, doubles, rubs,
A little music — then the tray —
And not a word of Clubs! —
But former comforts they condemn;
French kickshaws they discuss,
They take their wine, the wine takes them,
And then they favour us: —
From some offence they can’t digest,
As cross as bears with cubs,
Or sleepy, dull, and queer, at best —
That’s how they come from Clubs!
It’s very fine to say ‘Subscribe
To Andrews’ — can’t you read?’
When Wives, the poor neglected tribe,
Complain how they proceed!
They’d better recommend at once
Philosophy and tubs,
A Woman need not be a dunce
To feel the wrong of Clubs.
A set of savage Goths and Piets,
Would seek us now and then —
They’re pretty pattern-Benedicts
To guide our single men! —
Indeed my daughters both declare
‘Their Beaux shall not be subs.
To White’s, or Black’s, or anywhere,
They’ve seen enough of Clubs!’
They say, ‘without the marriage ties,
They can devote their hours
To catechize, or botanize —
Shells, Sunday Schools, and flow’rs —
Or teach a Pretty Poll new words,
Tend Covent-Garden shrubs,
Nurse dogs and chirp to little birds —
As Wives do since the Clubs.’
Alas! for those departed days
Of social wedded life,
When married folks had married ways,
And lived like Man and Wife!
Oh! Wedlock then was picked by none —
As safe a lock as Chubb’s!
But couples, that should be as one,
Are now the Two of Clubs! —
Of all the modern schemes of man
That time has brought to bear,
A plague upon the wicked plan
That parts the wedded pair!
My female friends they all allow
They meet with slights, and snubs,
And say, ‘They have no husbands now,
They’re married to their Clubs!’
A RISE AT THE FATHER OF ANGLING
TO MR. IZAAC WALTON, AT MR. MAJOR’S THE BOOKSELLER’S IN FLEET STREET
Mr. Walton, it’s harsh to say it, but as a Parent I can’t help wishing
You’d been hung before you publish’d your book, to set all the young people a fishing!
There’s my Robert, the trouble I’ve had with him it surpasses a mortal’s bearing,
And all thro’ those devilish angling works — the Lord forgive me for swearing!
I thought he were took with the Morbus one day, I did with his nasty angle!
For ‘oh dear,’ says he, and burst out in a cry, ‘oh my gut is all got of a tangle!’
It’s a shame to teach a young boy such words — whose blood wouldn’t chill in their veins
To hear him, as I overheard him one day, a-talking of blowing out brains?
And didn’t I quarrel with Sally the cook, and a precious scolding I give her,
‘How dare you,’ says I, ‘for to stench the whole house by keeping that stinking liver?’ —
Twas enough to breed a fever, it was! they smelt it next door at the Bagots’,
But it wasn’t breeding no fever — not it! ’twas my son a-breeding of maggots!
I declare that I couldn’t touch meat for a week, for it all seemed tainting and going,
And after turning my stomach so, they turned to blueflies, all buzzing and blowing;
Boys are nasty enough, goodness knows, of themselves, without putting live
things in their craniums;
Well, what next? but he pots a whole cargo of worms along with my choice geraniums.
And another fine trick, tho’ it wasn’t found out, till the housemaid had given us warning,
He fished at the golden fish in the bowl, before we were up and down in the morning.
I’m sure it was lucky for Ellen, poor thing, that she’d got so attentive a lover,
As brings her fresh fish when the others deceas’d, which they did a dozen times over! —
Then a whole new loaf was short! for I know, of course, when our bread goes faster,
And I made a stir with the bill in my hand, and the man was sent off by his master;
But, oh dear, I thought I should sink thro’ the earth, with the weight of my own reproaches,
For my own pretty son had made away with the loaf, to make pastry to feed
the roaches!
I vow I’ve suffered a martyrdom — with all sorts of frights and terrors surrounded!
For I never saw him go out of the doors but I thought he’d come home to me drownded.
And, sure enough, I set out one fine Monday to visit my married daughter,
And there he was standing at Sadler’s Wells, a-performing with real water.
It’s well he was off on the further side, for I’d have brain’d him else with my patten,
For I thought he was safe at school, the young wretch! a studying Greek and Latin.
And my ridicule basket he’d got on his back, to carry his fishes and gentles;
With a belt I knew he’d made from the belt of his father’s regimentals —
Well, I poked his rods and lines in the fire, and his father gave him a birching,
But he’d gone too far to be easy cured of his love for chubbing and perching.
One night he never came home to tea, and altho’ it was dark and dripping,
His father set off to Wapping, poor man! for the boy had a turn for shipping;
As for me I set up, and I sobbed and I cried for all the world like a babby,
Till at twelve o’clock he rewards my fears with two gudging from Waltham
Abbey!
And a pretty sore throat and fever he caught, that brought me a fortnight’s hard nussing,
Till I thought I should go to my grey-hair’d grave, worn out with the fretting and fussing; —
But at last he was cur’d, and we did have hopes that the fishing was cured as well,
But no such luck! not a week went by before we’d another such spell.
Tho’ he never had got a penny to spend, for such was our strict intentions,
Yet he was soon set up in tackle again, for all boys have such quick inventions:
And I lost my Lady’s Own Pocket Book, in spite of all my hunting and poking,
Till I found it chuck-full of tackles and hooks, and besides it had had a good soaking.
Then one Friday morning, I gets a summoning note from a sort of a law attorney,
For the boy had been trespassing people’s grounds while his father was gone a journey,
And I had to go and hush it all up by myself, in an office at Hatton Garden;
And to pay for the damage he’d done, to boot, and to beg some strange gentleman’s pardon.
And wasn’t he once fish’d out himself, and a man had to dive to find him,
And I saw him brought home with my motherly eyes and a mob of people behind him?
Yes, it took a full hour to rub him to life — whilst I was a-screaming and raving,
And a couple of guineas it cost us besides, to reward the humane man for his saving,
And didn’t Miss Crump leave us out of her will, all along of her taking dudgeon
At her favourite cat being chok’d, poor Puss, with a hook seow’d up in a gudgeon?
And old Brown complain’d that he pluck’d his live fowls, and not without show of reason,
For the cocks looked naked about necks and tails, and it wasn’t their moult ing season;
And sure and surely, when we came to enquire, there was cause for their
screeching and cackles,
For the mischief confess’d he had picked them a bit, for I think he call’d them the hackles.
A pretty tussle we had about that! but as if it warn’t picking enough,
When the winter comes on, to the muff-box I goes, just to shake out my sable muff —
‘O mercy!’ thinks I, ‘there’s the moth in the house!’ for the fur was all gone in patches;
And then at Ellen’s chinchilly I look, and its state of destruction just matches —
But it wasn’t no moth, Mr. Walton, but flies — sham flies to go trolling and trouting,
For his father’s great coat was all safe and sound, and that first set me adoubting.
A plague, say I, on all rods and lines, and on young or old watery danglers!
And after all that you’ll talk of such stuff as no harm in the world about anglers! —
And when all is done, all our worry and fuss, why, we’ve never had nothing worth dishing;
So you see, Mister Walton, no good comes at last of your famous book about fishing.
As for Robert’s, I burnt it a twelvemonth ago; but it turned up too late to be lucky,
For he’d got it by heart, as I found to the cost of
Your servant,
Jane Elizabeth Stuckey.
THE FORLORN SHEPHERD’S COMPLAINT
AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, FROM SYDNEY
‘Vell! Here I am — no Matter how it suits
A-keeping Company with them dumb Brutes,
Old Park vos no bad Judge — confound his vig!
Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig!
‘The like of Me, to come to New Sow Wales
To go a-tagging arter Vethers’ Tails
And valk in Herbage as delights the Flock,
But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock!
‘To go to set this solitary Job
To Von whose Vork vos alvay in a Mob!
It’s out of all our Lines, for sure I am
Jack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb!
‘I arn’t ashamed to say I sit and veep
To think of Seven Year of keepin
Sheep,
The spooniest Beasts in Nater, all to Sticks,
And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks!
‘If I’d fore-seed how Transports vood turn out
To only Baa! and Botanize about,
I’d quite as leaf have had the t’other Pull,
And come to Cotton as to all this Vool!
‘Von only happy moment I have had
Since here I come to be a Farmer’s Cad,
And then I cotch’d a vild Beast in a Snooze,
And pick’d her Pouch of three young Kangaroos!
‘Vot chance have I to go to Race or Mill?
Or show a sneaking Kindness for a Till;
And as for Vashings, on a hedge to dry,
I’d put the Natives’ Linen in my Eye!
‘If this whole Lot of Mutton I could scrag,
And find a fence to turn it into Swag,
I’d give it all in Lonnon Streets to stand,
And if I had my pick, I’d say the Strand!
‘But ven I goes, as maybe vonce I shall,
To my old Crib to meet with Jack, and Sal,
I’ve been so gallows honest in this Place,
I shan’t not like to show my sheepish Face.
‘It’s wery hard for nothing but a Box
Of Irish Blackguard to be keepin’ Flocks,
‘Mong naked Blacks, sich Savages to hus,
They’ve nayther got a Pocket nor a Pus.
‘But Folks may tell their Troubles till they’re sick
To dumb brute Beasts, and so I’ll cut my Stick!
And vot’s the Use a Feller’s Eyes to pipe
Vere von can’t borrow any Gemman’s Vipe?’
MORNING MEDITATIONS
Let Taylor preach, upon a morning breezy,
How well to rise while night and larks are flying —
For my part, getting up seems not so easy
By half as lying.
What if the lark does carol in the sky,
Soaring beyond the sight to find him out —
Wherefore am I to rise at such a fly?
I’m not a trout!
Talk not to me of bees and such like hums,
The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime —
Only lie long enough, and bed becomes
A bed of time.
To me Dan Phoebus and his care are nought,
His steeds that paw impatiently about,
Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought,
The first turn-out!
Right beautiful the dewy meads appear,
Besprinkled by the rosy-fingered girl;
/> What then, if I prefer my pillow beer
To early pearl? —
My stomach is not ruled by other men’s,
And, grumbling for a reason, quaintly begs
Wherefore should master rise before the hens
Have laid the eggs?
Why from a comfortable pillow start,
To see faint flushes in the east awaken,
A fig, say I, for any streaky part,
Excepting bacon!
An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn,
Who used to haste, the dewy grass among,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn —
Well — he died young!
With charwomen such early hours agree,
And sweeps that earn betimes their bite and sup,
But I’m no climbing boy, and need not be
All up — all up!
So here I’ll lie, my morning calls deferring,
Till something nearer to the stroke of noon; —
A. man that’s fond precociously of stirring,
Must be a spoon!
THE BEADLE’S ANNUAL ADDRESS
The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way —
And this is Christmas Eve, and here I he!
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
Save Queen Victoria, who the sceptre holds!
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain —
Save all the ministers that he in power,
Save all the Royal Sovereigns that reign!
* * * * *
Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
