Thomas Hood- Collected Poetical Works Read online

I pluck’d the Primrose at night’s dewy noon;

  Like Hope, it show’d its blossoms in the night; —

  ’Twas, like Endymion, watching for the Moon!

  And here are Sun-flowers, amorous of light!

  These golden Buttercups are April’s seal, —

  The Daisy-stars her constellations be:

  These grew so lowly, I was forced to kneel,

  Therefore I pluck no Daisies but for thee!

  Here’s Daisies for the morn, Primrose for gloom

  Pansies and Roses for the noontide hours: —

  A wight once made a dial of their bloom, —

  So may thy life be measured out by flowers!

  THE FORSAKEN.

  The dead are in their silent graves,

  And the dew is cold above,

  And the living weep and sigh,

  Over dust that once was love.

  Once I only wept the dead,

  But now the living cause my pain:

  How couldst thou steal me from my tears,

  To leave me to my tears again?

  My Mother rests beneath the sod, —

  Her rest is calm and very deep:

  I wish’d that she could see our loves, —

  But now I gladden in her sleep.

  Last night unbound my raven locks,

  The morning saw them turned to gray,

  Once they were black and well beloved,

  But thou art changed, — and so are they!

  The useless lock I gave thee once,

  To gaze upon and think of me,

  Was ta’en with smiles, — but this was torn

  In sorrow that I send to thee!

  AUTUMN.

  The Autumn is old,

  The sere leaves are flying; —

  He hath gather’d up gold,

  And now he is dying; —

  Old Age, begin sighing!

  The vintage is ripe,

  The harvest is heaping; —

  But some that have sow’d

  Have no riches for reaping; —

  Poor wretch, fall a-weeping!

  The year’s in the wane,

  There is nothing adorning,

  The night has no eve,

  And the day has no morning; —

  Cold winter gives warning.

  The rivers run chill,

  The red sun is sinking,

  And I am grown old,

  And life is fast shrinking;

  Here’s enow for sad thinking!

  ODE TO MELANCHOLY.

  Come, let us set our careful breasts,

  Like Philomel, against the thorn,

  To aggravate the inward grief,

  That makes her accents so forlorn;

  The world has many cruel points,

  Whereby our bosoms have been torn,

  And there are dainty themes of grief,

  In sadness to outlast the morn, —

  True honor’s dearth, affection’s death,

  Neglectful pride, and cankering scorn,

  With all the piteous tales that tears

  Have water’d since the world was born.

  The world! — it is a wilderness,

  Where tears are hung on every tree;

  For thus my gloomy phantasy

  Makes all things weep with me!

  Come let us sit and watch the sky,

  And fancy clouds, where no clouds be;

  Grief is enough to blot the eye,

  And make heaven black with misery.

  Why should birds sing such merry notes,

  Unless they were more blest than we?

  No sorrow ever chokes their throats,

  Except sweet nightingale; for she

  Was born to pain our hearts the more

  With her sad melody.

  Why shines the Sun, except that he

  Makes gloomy nooks for Grief to hide,

  And pensive shades for Melancholy,

  When all the earth is bright beside?

  Let clay wear smiles, and green grass wave,

  Mirth shall not win us back again,

  Whilst man is made of his own grave,

  And fairest clouds but gilded rain!

  I saw my mother in her shroud,

  Her cheek was cold and very pale;

  And ever since I’ve look’d on all

  As creatures doom’d to fail!

  Why do buds ope except to die?

  Ay, let us watch the roses wither,

  And think of our loves’ cheeks;

  And oh! how quickly time doth fly

  To bring death’s winter hither!

  Minutes, hours, days, and weeks,

  Months, years, and ages, shrink to nought;

  An age past is but a thought!

  Ay, let us think of Him awhile

  That, with a coffin for a boat,

  Rows daily o’er the Stygian moat,

  And for our table choose a tomb:

  There’s dark enough in any skull

  To charge with black a raven plume;

  And for the saddest funeral thoughts

  A winding-sheet hath ample room,

  Where Death, with his keen-pointed style,

  Hath writ the common doom.

  How wide the yew-tree spreads its gloom,

  And o’er the dead lets fall its dew,

  As if in tears it wept for them,

  The many human families

  That sleep around its stem!

  How cold the dead have made these stones,

  With natural drops kept ever wet!

  Lo! here the best — the worst — the world

  Doth now remember or forget,

  Are in one common ruin hurl’d,

  And love and hate are calmly met;

  The loveliest eyes that ever shone,

  The fairest hands, and locks of jet.

  Is’t not enough to vex our souls,

  And fill our eyes, that we have set

  Our love upon a rose’s leaf,

  Our hearts upon a violet?

  Blue eyes, red cheeks, are frailer yet;

  And sometimes at their swift decay

  Beforehand we must fret.

  The roses bud and bloom, again;

  But Love may haunt the grave of Love,

  And watch the mould in vain.

  O clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine,

  And do not take my tears amiss;

  For tears must flow to wash away

  A thought that shows so stern as this:

  Forgive, if somewhile I forget,

  In woe to come, the present bliss;

  As frighted Proserpine let fall

  Her flowers at the sight of Dis,

  Ev’n so the dark and bright will kiss.

  The sunniest things throw sternest shade,

  And there is ev’n a happiness

  That makes the heart afraid!

  Now let us with a spell invoke

  The full-orb’d moon to grieve our eyes;

  Not bright, not bright, but, with a cloud

  Lapp’d all about her, let her rise

  All pale and dim, as if from rest

  The ghost of the late-buried sun

  Had crept into the skies.

  The Moon! she is the source of sighs,

  The very face to make us sad;

  If but to think in other times

  The same calm quiet look she had,

  As if the world held nothing base,

  Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad;

  The same fair light that shone in streams,

  The fairy lamp that charmed the lad;

  For so it is, with spent delights

  She taunts men’s brains, and makes them mad.

  All things are touch’d with Melancholy,

  Born of the secret soul’s mistrust,

  To feel her fair ethereal wings

  Weigh’d down with vile degraded dust;

  Even the bright extremes of joy

  Bring on conclusions of
disgust,

  Like the sweet blossoms of the May,

  Whose fragrance ends in must.

  O give her, then, her tribute just,

  Her sighs and tears, and musings holy;

  There is no music in the life

  That sounds with idiot laughter solely;

  There’s not a string attuned to mirth,

  But has its chord in Melancholy.

  SONNETS.

  ON MISTRESS NICELY, A PATTERN FOR HOUSEKEEPERS.

  She was a woman peerless in her station,

  With household virtues wedded to her name;

  Spotless in linen, grass-bleached in her fame;

  And pure and clear-starched in her conversation;

  Thence in my Castle of Imagination

  She dwells for evermore, the dainty dame,

  To keep all airy draperies from shame

  And all dream furnitures in preservation:

  There walketh she with keys quite silver bright,

  In perfect hose and shoes of seemly black,

  Apron and stomacher of lily white,

  And decent order follows in her track:

  The burnished plate grows lustrous in her sight,

  And polished floors and tables shine her back.

  SONNET. WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF SHAKSPEARE.

  How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky

  The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled!

  Hues of all flow’rs, that in their ashes lie,

  Trophied in that fair light whereon they fed, —

  Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red, —

  Like exhalations from the leafy mould,

  Look here how honor glorifies the dead,

  And warms their scutcheons with a glance of gold! —

  Such is the memory of poets old,

  Who on Parnassus’ hill have bloom’d elate;

  Now they are laid under their marbles cold,

  And turned to clay, whereof they were create;

  But god Apollo hath them all enroll’d,

  And blazon’d on the very clouds of Fate!

  TO FANCY.

  Most delicate Ariel! submissive thing,

  Won by the mind’s high magic to its hest —

  Invisible embassy, or secret guest, —

  Weighing the light air on a lighter wing; —

  Whether into the midnight moon, to bring

  Illuminate visions to the eye of rest, —

  Or rich romances from the florid West, —

  Or to the sea, for mystic whispering, —

  Still by thy charm’d allegiance to the will,

  The fruitful wishes prosper in the brain,

  As by the fingering of fairy skill, —

  Moonlight, and waters, and soft music’s strain,

  Odors, and blooms, and my Miranda’s smile,

  Making this dull world an enchanted isle.

  TO AN ENTHUSIAST.

  Young ardent soul, graced with fair Nature’s truth,

  Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind,

  And still a large late love of all thy kind.

  Spite of the world’s cold practice and Time’s tooth, —

  For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth,

  Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind

  Thine eyes with tears, — that thou hast not resign’d

  The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth:

  For as the current of thy life shall flow,

  Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stain’d,

  Through flow’ry valley or unwholesome fen,

  Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe

  Thrice cursed of thy race, — thou art ordain’d

  To share beyond the lot of common men.

  DEATH.

  It is not death, that sometime in a sigh

  This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;

  That sometime these bright stars, that now reply

  In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;

  That warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,

  And all life’s ruddy springs forget to flow;

  That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite

  Be lapp’d in alien clay and laid below;

  It is not death to know this, — but to know

  That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves

  In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go

  So duly and so oft, — and when grass waves

  Over the past-away, there may be then

  No resurrection in the minds of men.

  SONNET. BY EV’RY SWEET TRADITION OF TRUE HEARTS.

  By ev’ry sweet tradition of true hearts,

  Graven by Time, in love with his own lore;

  By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts,

  Wherein Love died to be alive the more;

  Yea, by the sad impression on the shore,

  Left by the drown’d Leander, to endear

  That coast for ever, where the billow’s roar

  Moaneth for pity in the Poet’s ear;

  By Hero’s faith, and the foreboding tear

  That quench’d her brand’s last twinkle in its fall;

  By Sappho’s leap, and the low rustling fear

  That sigh’d around her flight; I swear by all,

  The world shall find such pattern in my act,

  As if Love’s great examples still were lack’d.

  ON RECEIVING A GIFT.

  Look how the golden ocean shines above

  Its pebbly stones, and magnifies their girth;

  So does the bright and blessed light of Love

  Its own things glorify, and raise their worth.

  As weeds seem flowers beneath the flattering brine,

  And stones like gems, and gems as gems indeed,

  Ev’n so our tokens shine; nay, they outshine

  Pebbles and pearls, and gems and coral weed;

  For where be ocean waves but half so clear,

  So calmly constant, and so kindly warm,

  As Love’s most mild and glowing atmosphere,

  That hath no dregs to be upturn’d by storm?

  Thus, sweet, thy gracious gifts are gifts of price,

  And more than gold to doting Avarice.

  SONNET TO MY WIFE.

  The curse of Adam, the old curse of all,

  Though I inherit in this feverish life

  Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife,

  And fruitless thought, in Care’s eternal thrall,

  Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall

  I taste, through thee, my Eve, my sweet wife.

  Then what was Man’s lost Paradise! — how rife

  Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall!

  Such as our own pure passion still might frame,

  Of this fair earth, and its delightful bow’rs,

  If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came

  To trail its venom o’er the sweetest flow’rs; —

  But oh! as many and such tears are ours,

  As only should be shed for guilt and shame!

  SONNET. LOVE, DEAREST LADY, SUCH AS I WOULD SPEAK,

  Love, dearest Lady, such as I would speak,

  Lives not within the humor of the eye; —

  Not being but an outward phantasy,

  That skims the surface of a tinted cheek, —

  Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak,

  As if the rose made summer, — and so lie

  Amongst the perishable things that die,

  Unlike the love which I would give and seek:

  Whose health is of no hue — to feel decay

  With cheeks’ decay, that have a rosy prime.

  Love is its own great loveliness alway,

  And takes new lustre from the touch of time;

  Its bough owns no December and no May,

  But bears its blossom into Winter’s clime.

  SILENCE.

  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 wide desert where no life is found,

  Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;

  No voice is hush’d — no life treads silently,

  But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free.

  That never spoke, over the idle ground:

  But in green ruins, in the desolate walls

  Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,

  Though the dun fox, or wild hyæna, calls,

  And owls, that flit continually between,

  Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, —

  There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

  THE EPPING HUNT (1829)

  CONTENTS

  ADVERTISEMENT.

  THE EPPING HUNT.

  MORAL.

  ADVERTISEMENT.

  Striding in the Steps of Strutt — The historian of the old English ports — the author of the following pages has endeavored to record a yearly revel, already fast hastening to decay. The Easter phase will soon be numbered with the pastimes of past times: its dogs will have had their day, and its Deer will be Fallow. A few more seasons, and this City Common Hunt will become uncommon.

  In proof of this melancholy decadance, the ensuing epistle is inserted. It was penned by an underling at the Kells, a person more accustomed to riding than writing: —

  “Sir, — About the Hunt. In anser to your Innqueries, their as been a great falling off laterally, so muches this year that there was nobody allmost. We did smear nothing provisionally, hardly a Bottle extra, wich is a proof in Pint. In short our Hunt may be said to be in the last Stag of a decline.”

  “I am, Sir,”

  “With respects from your humble Servant,”

  “BARTHOLOMEW RUTT.”

  THE EPPING HUNT.