Thomas Hood (1799 – 1845)
English humorist and poet.
Never go to France
Unless you know the lingo,
If you do, like me,
You will repent, by jingo.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied;
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
There's not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy.
Alas! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!
Work! work! work!
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work—work—work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
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."