Thomas Hood- Collected Poetical Works
Page 92
CCXXXIII.
But Sir Jacob walk’d more slowly, and bow’d
Eight and left to the gaping crowd,
Wherever a glance was seizable;
For Sir Jacob thought he bow’d like a Guelph,
And therefore bow’d to imp and elf,
And would gladly have made a bow to himself,
Had such a bow been feasible.
CCXXXIV.
And last — and not the least of the sight,
Six “Handsome Fortunes,” all in white,
Came to help in the marriage rite, —
And rehearse their own hymeneals;
And then the bright procession to close,
They were followed by just as many Beaux
Quite fine enough for Ideals.
CCXXXV.
Glittering men, and splendid dames,
Thus they enter’d the porch of Saint James’,
Pursued by a thunder of laughter;
For the Beadle was forced to intervene,
For Jim the Crow, and his Mayday Queen,
With her gilded ladle, and Jack i’ the Green,
Would fain have follow’d after!
CCXXXVI.
Beadle-like he hush’d the shouts;
But the temple was full “inside and out,”
And a buzz kept buzzing all round about
Like bees when the day is sunny —
A buzz universal that interfered
With the right that ought to have been revered,
As if the couple already were smear’d
With Wedlock’s treacle and honey!
CCXXXVII.
Yet Wedlock’s a very awful thing!
’Tis something like that feat in the ring,
Which requires good nerve to do it —
When one of a “Grand Equestrian Troop”
Makes a jump at a gilded hoop,
Not certain at all
Of what may befall
After his getting through it!
CCCXXXVIII.
But the Count he felt the nervous work
No more than any polygamous Turk,
Or bold piratical skipper,
Who, during his buccaneering search,
Would as soon engage a hand in church
As a hand on board his clipper!
CCXXXIX.
And how did the Bride perform her part?
Like any bride who is cold at heart.
Mere snow with the ice’s glitter;
What but a life of winter for her!
Bright but chilly, alive without stir,
So splendidly comfortless, — just like a Fir
When the frost is severe and bitter.
CCXL.
Such were the future man and wife!
Whose bale or bliss to the end of life
A few short words were to settle —
“Wilt thou have this woman?”
“I will” — and then,
“Wilt thou have this man?”
“I will,” and “Amen” —
And those Two were one Flesh, in the Angels’ ken,
Except one Leg — that was metal.
CCXLI.
Then the names were sign’d — and kiss’d the kiss:
And the Bride, who came from her coach a Miss,
As a Countess walk’d to her carriage —
Whilst Hymen preen’d his plumes like a dove,
And Cupid flutter’d his wings above,
In the shape of a fly — as little a Love
As ever look’d in at a marriage!
CCXLII.
Another crash — and away they dash’d,
And the gilded carriage and footmen flash’d
From the eyes of the gaping people —
Who turn’d to gaze at the toe-and-heel
Of the Golden Boys beginning a reel,
To the merry sound of a wedding peal
From St. James’s musical steeple.
CCXLIII.
Those wedding bells! those wedding bells!
How sweetly they sound in pastoral dells
From a tow’r in an ivy-green jacket!
But town-made joys how dearly they cost;
And after all are tumbled and tost,
Like a peal from a London steeple, and lost
In town-made riot and racket.
CCXLIV.
The wedding peal, how sweetly it peals
With grass or heather beneath our heels, —
For bells are Music’s laughter! —
But a London peal, well mingled, be sure,
With vulgar noises and voices impure, —
With a harsh and discordant overture
To the Harmony meant to come after!
CCXLV.
But hence with Discord — perchance, too soon
To cloud the face of the honeymoon
With a dismal occultation! —
Whatever Fate’s concerted trick,
The Countess and Count, at the present nick,
Have a chicken, and not a crow, to pick
At a sumptuous Cold Collation.
CCXLVI.
A Breakfast — no unsubstantial mess,
But one in the style of Good Queen Bess,
Who, — hearty as hippocampus, —
Broke her fast with ale and beef,
Instead of toast and the Chinese leaf,
And — in lieu of anchovy — grampus.
CCXLVII.
A breakfast of fowl, and fish, and flesh,
Whatever was sweet, or salt, or fresh;
With wines the most rare and curious —
Wines, of the richest flavor and hue;
With fruits from the worlds both Old and New;
And fruits obtain’d before they were due
At a discount most usurious.
CCXLVIII.
For wealthy palates there be, that scout
What is in season, for what is out,
And prefer all precocious savor:
For instance, early green peas, of the sort
That costs some four or five guineas a quart;
Where the Mint is the principal flavor.
CCXLIX.
And many a wealthy man was there,
Such as the wealthy City could spare,
To put in a portly appearance —
Men, whom their fathers had help’d to gild:
And men, who had had their fortunes to build
And — much to their credit — had richly fill’d
Their purses by pursy-verance.
CCL.
Men, by popular rumor at least,
Not the last to enjoy a feast!
And truly they were not idle!
Luckier far than the chestnut tits,
Which, down at the door, stood champing their bits,
At a different sort of bridle.
CCLI.
For the time was come — and the whisker’d Count
Help’d his Bride in the carriage to mount,
And fain would the Muse deny it,
But the crowd, including two butchers in blue,
(The regular killing Whitechapel hue,)
Of her Precious Calf had as ample a view,
As if they had come to buy it!
CCLII.
Then away! away! with all the speed
That golden spurs can give to the steed, —
Both Yellow Boys and Guineas, indeed,
Concurr’d to urge the cattle —
Away they went, with favors white,
Yellow jackets, and panels bright,
And left the mob, like a mob at night,
Agape at the sound of a rattle.
CCLIII.
Away! away! they rattled and roll’d,
The Count, and his Bride, and her Leg of Gold —
That faded charm to the charmer!
Away, — through old Brentford rang the din
Of wheels and heels, on their way to win
/> That hill, named after one of her kin,
The Hill of the Golden Farmer!
CCLIV.
Gold, still gold — it flew like dust!
It tipp’d the post-boy, and paid the trust;
In each open palm it was freely thrust;
There was nothing but giving and taking!
And if gold could ensure the future hour,
What hopes attended that Bride to her bow’r,
But alas! even hearts with a four-horse pow’r
Of opulence end in breaking!
HER HONEYMOON.
CCLV.
The moon — the moon, so silver and cold,
Her fickle temper has oft been told,
Now shady — now bright and sunny —
But of all the lunar things that change,
The one that shows most fickle and strange,
And takes the most eccentric range,
Is the moon — so call’d — of honey!
CCLVI.
To some a full-grown orb reveal’d
As big and as round as Norval’s shield,
And as bright as a burner Bude-lighted;
To others as dull, and dingy, and damp,
As any oleaginous lamp,
Of the regular old parochial stamp,
In a London fog benighted.
CCLVII.
To the loving, a bright and constant sphere,
That makes earth’s commonest things appear
All poetic, romantic, and tender:
Hanging with jewels a cabbage-stump,
And investing a common post, or a pump,
A currant-bush, or a gooseberry clump,
With a halo of dreamlike splendor.
CCLVIII.
A sphere such as shone from Italian skies,
In Juliet’s dear, dark, liquid eyes,
Tipping trees with its argent braveries —
And to couples not favor’d with Fortune’s boons
One of the most delightful of moons,
For it brightens their pewter platters and spoons
Like a silver service of Savory’s!
CCLIX.
For all is bright, and beauteous, and clear,
And the meanest thing most precious and dear
When the magic of love is present:
Love, that lends a sweetness and grace
To the humblest spot and the plainest face —
That turns Wilderness Row into Paradise Place,
And Garlick Hill to Mount Pleasant!
CCLX.
Love that sweetens sugarless tea,
And makes contentment and joy agree
With the coarsest boarding and bedding:
Love, that no golden ties can attach,
But nestles under the humblest thatch,
And will fly away from an Emperor’s match
To dance at a Penny Wedding!
CCLXI.
Oh, happy, happy, thrice happy state,
When such a bright Planet governs the fate
Of a pair of united lovers!
’Tis theirs, in spite of the Serpent’s hiss,
To enjoy the pure primeval kiss,
With as much of the old original bliss
As mortality ever recovers!
CCLXII.
There’s strength in double joints, no doubt,
In double X Ale, and Dublin Stout,
That the single sorts know nothing about —
And a fist is strongest when doubled —
And double aqua-fortis, of course,
And double soda-water, perforce,
Are the strongest that ever bubbled!
CCLXIII.
There’s double beauty whenever a Swan
Swims on a Lake, with her double thereon;
And ask the gardener, Luke or John,
Of the beauty of double-blowing —
A double dahlia delights the eye;
And it’s far the loveliest sight in the sky
When a double rainbow is glowing!
CCLXIV.
There’s warmth in a pair of double soles;
As well as a double allowance of coals —
In a coat that is double-breasted —
In double windows and double doors;
And a double U wind is blest by scores
For its warmth to the tender-chested.
CCLXV.
There’s a twofold sweetness in double pipes;
And a double barrel and double snipes
Give the sportsman a duplicate pleasure;
There’s double safety in double locks:
And double letters bring cash for the box:
And all the world knows that double knocks,
Are gentility’s double measure.
CCLXVI.
There’s a double sweetness in double rhymes,
And a double at Whist and a double Times
In profit are certainly double —
By doubling, the Hare contrives to escape;
And all seamen delight in a doubled Cape,
And a double-reef’d topsail in trouble.
CCLXVII.
There’s a double chuck at a double chin,
And of course there’s a double pleasure therein,
If the parties were brought to telling:
And however our Dennises take offence,
A double meaning shows double sense;
And if proverbs tell truth,
A double tooth
Is Wisdom’s adopted dwelling!
CCLXVIII.
But double wisdom, and pleasure, and sense,
Beauty, respect, strength, comfort, and thence
Through whatever the list discovers,
They are all in the double blessedness summ’d,
Of what was formerly doubled-drumm’d,
The Marriage of two true Lovers!
CCLXIX.
Now the Kilmansegg Moon, — it must be told —
Though instead of silver it tipp’d with gold —
Shone rather wan, and distant, and cold,
And before its days were at thirty,
Such gloomy clouds began to collect,
With an ominous ring of ill effect,
As gave but too much cause to expect
Such weather as seamen call dirty!
CCLXX.
And yet the moon was the “Young May Moon,”
And the scented hawthorn had blossom’d soon,
And the thrush and the blackbird were singing —
The snow-white lambs were skipping in play,
And the bee was humming a tune all day
To flowers, as welcome as flowers in May,
And the trout in the stream was springing!
CCLXXI.
But what were the hues of the blooming earth,
Its scents — its sounds — or the music and mirth
Of its furr’d or its feather’d creatures,
To a Pair in the world’s last sordid stage,
Who had never look’d into Nature’s page,
And had strange ideas of a Golden Age,
Without any Arcadian features?
CCLXXII.
And what were joys of the pastoral kind
To a Bride — town-made — with a heart and a mind
With simplicity ever at battle?
A bride of an ostentatious race,
Who, thrown in the Golden Farmer’s place,
Would have trimm’d her shepherds with golden lace,
And gilt the horns of her cattle.
CCLXXIII.
She could not please the pigs with her whim,
And the sheep wouldn’t cast their eyes at a limb
For which she had been such a martyr:
The deer in the park, and the colts at grass,
And the cows unheeded let it pass;
And the ass on the common was such an ass,
That he wouldn’t have swopp’d
The thistle he cropp’d
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For her Leg, including the Garter!
CCLXXIV.
She hated lanes and she hated fields —
She hated all that the country yields —
And barely knew turnips from clover;
She hated walking in any shape,
And a country stile was an awkward scrape,
Without the bribe of a mob to gape
At the Leg in clambering over!
CCLXXV.
O blessed nature, “O rus! O rus!”
Who cannot sigh for the country thus,
Absorb’d in a wordly torpor —
Who does not yearn for its meadow-sweet breath,
Untainted by care, and crime, and death,
And to stand sometimes upon grass or heath —
That soul, spite of gold, is a pauper!
CCLXXVI.
But to hail the pearly advent of morn,
And relish the odor fresh from the thorn,
She was far too pamper’d a madam —
Or to joy in the daylight waxing strong,
While, after ages of sorrow and wrong,
The scorn of the proud, the misrule of the strong,
And all the woes that to man belong,
The Lark still carols the selfsame song
That he did to the uncurst Adam!
CCLXXVII.
The Lark! she had given all Leipzig’s flocks
For a Vauxhall tune in a musical box;
And as for the birds in the thicket,
Thrush or ousel in leafy niche,
The linnet or finch, she was far too rich
To care for a Morning Concert, to which
She was welcome without any ticket.