by Thomas Hood
CCLXXVIII.
Gold, still gold, her standard of old,
All pastoral joys were tried by gold,
Or by fancies golden and crural —
Till ere she had pass’d one week unblest,
As her agricultural Uncle’s guest,
Her mind was made up, and fully imprest,
That felicity could not be rural!
CCLXXIX.
And the Count? — to the snow-white lambs at play,
And all the scents and the sights of May,
And the birds that warbled their passion,
His ears and dark eyes, and decided nose,
Were as deaf and as blind and as dull as those
That overlook the Bouquet de Rose,
The Huile Antique,
The Parfum Unique,
In a Barber’s Temple of Fashion.
CCLXXX.
To tell, indeed, the true extent
Of his rural bias, so far it went
As to covet estates in ring fences —
And for rural lore he had learn’d in town
That the country was green, turn’d up with brown,
And garnish’d with trees that a man might cut down
Instead of his own expenses.
CCLXXXI.
And yet had that fault been his only one,
The Pair might have had few quarrels or none,
For their tastes thus far were in common;
But faults he had that a haughty bride
With a Golden Leg could hardly abide —
Faults that would even have roused the pride
Of a far less metalsome woman!
CCLXXXII.
It was early days indeed for a wife,
In the very spring of her married life,
To be chill’d by its wintry weather —
But instead of sitting as Love-Birds do,
On Hymen’s turtles that bill and coo —
Enjoying their “moon and honey for two,”
They were scarcely seen together!
CCLXXXIII.
In vain she sat with her Precious Leg
A little exposed, à la Kilmansegg,
And roll’d her eyes in their sockets!
He left her in spite of her tender regards,
And those loving murmurs described by bards,
For the rattling of dice and the shuffling of cards,
And the poking of balls into pockets!
CCLXXXIV.
Moreover he loved the deepest stake
And the heaviest bets the players would make;
And he drank — the reverse of sparely, —
And he used strange curses that made her fret;
And when he play’d with herself at piquet,
She found, to her cost,
For she always lost,
That the Count did not count quite fairly.
CCLXXXV.
And then came dark mistrust and doubt,
Gather’d by worming his secrets out,
And slips in his conversations —
Fears, which all her peace destroy’d,
That his title was null — his coffers were void —
And his French Château was in Spain, or enjoy’d
The most airy of situations.
CCLXXXVI.
But still his heart — if he had such a part —
She — only she — might possess his heart,
And hold his affections in fetters —
Alas! that hope, like a crazy ship,
Was forced its anchor and cable to slip
When, seduced by her fears, she took a dip
In his private papers and letters.
CCLXXXVII.
Letters that told of dangerous leagues;
And notes that hinted as many intrigues
As the Count’s in the “Barber of Seville” —
In short such mysteries came to light,
That the Countess-Bride, on the thirtieth night,
Woke and started up in affright,
And kick’d and scream’d with all her might,
And finally fainted away outright,
For she dreamt she had married the Devil!
HER MISERY.
CCLXXXVIII.
Who hath not met with home-made bread,
A heavy compound of putty and lead —
And home-made wines that rack the head,
And home-made liqueurs and waters?
Home-made pop that will not foam,
And home-made dishes that drive one from home,
Not to name each mess,
For the face or dress,
Home-made by the homely daughters?
CCLXXXIX.
Home-made physic that sickens the sick;
Thick for thin and thin for thick; —
In short each homogeneous trick
For poisoning domesticity?
And since our Parents, call’d the First,
A little family squabble nurst,
Of all our evils the worst of the worst
Is home-made infelicity.
CCXC.
There’s a Golden Bird that claps its wings,
And dances for joy on its perch, and sings
With a Persian exultation:
For the Sun is shining into the room,
And brightens up the carpet-bloom,
As if it were new, bran new, from the loom,
Or the lone Nun’s fabrication.
CCXCI.
And thence the glorious radiance flames
On pictures in massy gilded frames —
Enshrining, however, no painted Dames,
But portraits of colts and fillies —
Pictures hanging on walls, which shine,
In spite of the bard’s familiar line,
With clusters of “Gilded lilies.”
CCXCII.
And still the flooding sunlight shares
Its lustre with gilded sofas and chairs,
That shine as if freshly burnish’d —
And gilded tables, with glittering stocks
Of gilded china, and golden clocks,
Toy, and trinket, and musical box,
That Peace and Paris have furnish’d.
CCXCIII.
And lo! with the brightest gleam of all
The glowing sunbeam is seen to fall
On an object as rare as spendid —
The golden foot of the Golden Leg
Of the Countess — once Miss Kilmansegg —
But there all sunshine is ended.
CCXCIV.
Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dim,
And downward cast, yet not at the limb,
Once the centre of all speculation;
But downward dropping in comfort’s dearth,
As gloomy thoughts are drawn to the earth —
Whence human sorrows derive their birth —
By a moral gravitation.
CCXCV.
Her golden hair is out of its braids,
And her sighs betray the gloomy shades
That her evil planet revolves in —
And tears are falling that catch a gleam
So bright as they drop in the sunny beam,
That tears of aqua regia they seem,
The water that gold dissolves in;
CCXCVI.
Yet, not in filial grief were shed
Those tears for a mother’s insanity;
Nor yet because her father was dead,
For the bowing Sir Jacob had bow’d his head
To Death — with his usual urbanity;
The waters that down her visage rill’d
Were drops of unrectified spirit distill’d
From the limbeck of Pride and Vanity.
CCXCVII.
Tears that fell alone and unchecked,
Without relief, and without respect,
Like the fabled pearls that the pigs neglect,
When pigs have that opportunity
—
And of all the griefs that mortals share,
The one that seems the hardest to bear
Is the grief without community.
CCXCVIII.
How bless’d the heart that has a friend
A sympathising ear to lend
To troubles too great to smother!
For as ale and porter, when flat, are restored
Till a sparkling bubbling head they afford,
So sorrow is cheer’d by being pour’d
From one vessel into another.
CCXCIX.
But a friend or gossip she had not one
To hear the vile deeds that the Count had done,
How night after night he rambled;
And how she had learn’d by sad degrees
That he drank, and smoked, and worse than these,
That he “swindled, intrigued, and gambled.”
CCC.
How he kiss’d the maids, and sparr’d with John;
And came to bed with his garments on;
With other offences as heinous —
And brought strange gentlemen home to dine
That he said were in the Fancy Line,
And they fancied spirits instead of wine,
And call’d her lap-dog “Wenus.”
CCCI.
Of “Making a book” how he made a stir,
But never had written a line to her,
Once his idol and Cara Sposa:
And how he had storm’d, and treated her ill,
Because she refused to go down to a mill,
She didn’t know where, but remember’d still
That the Miller’s name was Mendoza.
CCCII.
How often he waked her up at night,
And oftener still by the morning light,
Reeling home from his haunts unlawful;
Singing songs that shouldn’t be sung,
Except by beggars and thieves unhung —
Or volleying oaths, that a foreign tongue
Made still more horrid and awful!
CCCIII.
How oft, instead of otto rose,
With vulgar smells he offended her nose,
From gin, tobacco, and onion!
And then how wildly he used to stare!
And shake his fist at nothing, and swear, —
And pluck by the handful his shaggy hair,
Till he look’d like a study of Giant Despair
For a new Edition of Bunyan!
CCCIV.
For dice will run the contrary way,
As well is known to all who play,
And cards will conspire as in treason:
And what with keeping a hunting-box,
Following fox —
Friends in flocks,
Burgundies, Hocks,
From London Docks,
Stultz’s frocks,
Manton and Nock’s
Barrels and locks,
Shooting blue rocks,
Trainers and jocks,
Buskins and socks,
Pugilistical knocks,
And fighting-cocks,
If he found himself short in funds and stocks,
These rhymes will furnish the reason!
CCCV.
His friends, indeed, were falling away —
Friends who insist on play or pay —
And he fear’d at no very distant day
To be cut by Lord and by cadger,
As one, who has gone, or is going, to smash,
For his checks no longer drew the cash,
Because, as his comrades explain’d in flash,
“He had overdrawn his badger.”
CCCVI.
Gold, gold — alas! for the gold
Spent where souls are bought and sold,
In Vice’s Walpurgis revel!
Alas! for muffles, and bulldogs, and guns,
The leg that walks, and the leg that runs,
All real evils, though Fancy ones,
When they lead to debt, dishonor, and duns,
Nay, to death, and perchance the devil!
CCCVII.
Alas! for the last of a Golden race!
Had she cried her wrongs in the market-place,
She had warrant for all her clamor —
For the worst of rogues, and brutes, and rakes,
Was breaking her heart by constant aches,
With as little remorse as the Pauper, who breaks
A flint with a parish hammer!
HER LAST WILL.
CCCVIII.
Now the Precious Leg while cash was flush,
Or the Count’s acceptance worth a rush,
Had never created dissension;
But no sooner the stocks began to fall,
Than, without any ossification at all,
The limb became what people call
A perfect bone of contention.
CCCIX.
For alter’d days brought alter’d ways,
And instead of the complimentary phrase,
So current before her bridal —
The Countess heard, in language low,
That her Precious Leg was precious slow,
A good ‘un to look at but bad to go,
And kept quite a sum lying idle.
CCCX.
That instead of playing musical airs,
Like Colin’s foot in going upstairs —
As the wife in the Scottish ballad declares —
It made an infernal stumping.
Whereas a member of cork, or wood,
Would be lighter and cheaper and quite as good,
Without the unbearable thumping.
CCCXI.
P’raps she thought it a decent thing
To show her calf to cobbler and king,
But nothing could be absurder —
While none but the crazy would advertise
Their gold before their servants’ eyes,
Who of course some night would make it a prize,
By a Shocking and Barbarous Murder.
CCCXII.
But spite of hint, and threat, and scoff,
The Leg kept its situation:
For legs are not to be taken off
By a verbal amputation.
And mortals when they take a whim,
The greater the folly the stiffer the limb
That stand upon it or by it —
So the Countess, then Miss Kilmansegg,
At her marriage refused to stir a peg,
Till the Lawyers had fasten’d on her Leg
As fast as the Law could tie it.
CCCXIII.
Firmly then — and more firmly yet —
With scorn for scorn, and with threat for threat,
The Proud One confronted the Cruel:
And loud and bitter the quarrel arose,
Fierce and merciless — one of those,
With spoken daggers, and looks like blows,
In all but the bloodshed a duel!
CCCXIV.
Rash, and wild, and wretched, and wrong,
Were the words that came from Weak and Strong,
Till madden’d for desperate matters,
Fierce as tigress escaped from her den,
She flew to her desk— ’twas open’d — and then,
In the time it takes to try a pen,
Or the clerk to utter his slow Amen,
Her Will was in fifty tatters!
CCCXV.
But the Count, instead of curses wild,
Only nodded his head and smiled,
As if at the spleen of an angry child;
But the calm was deceitful and sinister!
A lull like the lull of the treacherous sea —
For Hate in that moment had sworn to be
The Golden Leg’s sole Legatee,
And that very night to administer!
HER DEATH.
CCCXVI.
’Tis a stern and startling thing to think
Of its grave without any misgiving:
And yet in this slippery world of strife,
In the stir of human bustle so rife,
There are daily sounds to tell us that Life
Is dying, and Death is living!
CCCXVII.
Ay, Beauty the Girl, and Love the Boy,
Bright as they are with hope and joy,
How their souls would sadden instanter,
To remember that one of those wedding bells,
Which ring so merrily through the dells,
Is the same that knells
Our last farewells,
Only broken into a canter!
CCCXVIII.
But breath and blood set doom at nought —
How little the wretched Countess thought,
When at night she unloosed her sandal,
That the Fates had woven her burial-cloth,
And that Death, in the shape of a Death’s Head Moth,
Was fluttering round her candle!
CCCXIX.
As she look’d at her clock of or-molu,
For the hours she had gone so wearily through
At the end of a day of trial —
How little she saw in her pride of prime
The dart of Death in the Hand of Time —
That hand which moved on the dial!
CCCXX.
As she went with her taper up the stair,
How little her swollen eye was aware
That the Shadow which followed was double!
Or when she closed her chamber door,
It was shutting out, and forevermore,
The world — and its worldly trouble.
CCCXXI.
Little she dreamt, as she laid aside
Her jewels — after one glance of pride —
