Thomas Hood (1799 – 1845)
English humorist and poet.
And lo! the universal air
Seemed lit with ghastly flame;
Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes
Were looking down in blame
His death which happened in his berth,
At forty-odd befell:
They went and told the sexton, and
The sexton tolled the bell.
Even God's providence
Seeming estranged.
But evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart.
That very night while gentle sleep
The urchin's eyelids kissed,
Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,
Through the cold and heavy mist;
And Eugene Aram walked between,
With gyves upon his wrist.
No sun—no moon—no morn—no noon,
No dawn—no dusk—no proper time of day,
No warmth—no cheerfulness—no healthful ease,
No road, no street, no t' other side the way,
No comfortable feel in any member—
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold.
I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from Heaven
Than when I was a boy.
One more Unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashion'd so slenderly
Young, and so fair!
How widely its agencies vary,—
To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,—
As even its minted coins express,
Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now of a Bloody Mary.
Oh would I were dead now,
Or up in my bed now,
To cover my head now,
And have a good cry!
Home-made dishes that drive one from home.
When he is forsaken,
Withered and shaken,
What can an old man do but die?
No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief.
Pity it is to slay the meanest thing.
Boughs are daily rifled
By the gusty thieves,
And the book of Nature
Getteth short of leaves.
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the “Song of the Shirt.”
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.
Each cloud-capt mountain is a holy altar;
An organ breathes in every grove;
And the full heart 's a Psalter,
Rich in deep hymn of gratitude and love.
Oh bed! oh bed! delicious bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head.