Thomas Hood (1799 – 1845)
English humorist and poet.
There's a double beauty whenever a swan
Swims on a lake with her double thereon.
There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,—
In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea,
Or in the wide desert where no life is found.
I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.
My head was like an ardent coal,
My heart as solid ice;
My wretched, wretched soul, I knew,
Was at the Devil's price:
A dozen times I groaned: the dead
Had never groaned but twice!
What joy have I in June's return?
My feet are parched—my eyeballs burn,
I scent no flowery gust;
But faint the flagging Zephyr springs,
With dry Macadam on its wings,
And turns me "dust to dust."
Oh, God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!
Oh bed! oh bed! delicious bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head.
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.
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.
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.”
Boughs are daily rifled
By the gusty thieves,
And the book of Nature
Getteth short of leaves.
Pity it is to slay the meanest thing.
No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief.
When he is forsaken,
Withered and shaken,
What can an old man do but die?
Home-made dishes that drive one from home.
And lo! the universal air
Seemed lit with ghastly flame;
Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes
Were looking down in blame
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.
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!
Oh would I were dead now,
Or up in my bed now,
To cover my head now,
And have a good cry!
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mould.