Thomas Hood- Collected Poetical Works Read online

  And bay’d me up the tree!

  My sight was like a drunkard’s sight,

  And my head began to swim,

  To see their jaws all white with foam,

  Like the ravenous ocean-brim; —

  But when the wild dogs trotted away

  Their jaws were bloody and grim!

  Their jaws were bloody and grim, good Lord!

  But the beggar man, where was he? —

  There was nought of him but some ribbons of rags

  Below the gallows’ tree! —

  I know the Devil, when I am dead,

  Will send his hounds for me! —

  I’ve buried my babies one by one,

  And dug the deep hole for Joan,

  And cover’d the faces of kith and kin,

  And felt the old churchyard stone

  Go cold to my heart, full many a time,

  But I never felt so lone!

  For the lion and Adam were company,

  And the tiger him beguil’d;

  But the simple kine are foes to my life,

  And the household brutes are wild.

  If the veriest cur would lick my hand,

  I could love it like a child!

  And the beggar man’s ghost besets my dreams,

  At night to make me madder, —

  And my wretched conscience, within my breast,

  Is like a stinging adder; —

  I sigh when I pass the gallows’ foot,

  And look at the rope and ladder! —

  For hanging looks sweet, — but, alas! in vain,

  My desperate fancy begs, —

  I must turn my cup of sorrows quite up,

  And drink it to the dregs, —

  For there is not another man alive,

  In the world, to pull my legs!

  FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN.

  AN OLD BALLAD.

  Young Ben he was a nice young man,

  A carpenter by trade;

  And he fell in love with Sally Brown,

  That was a lady’s maid.

  But as they fetch’d a walk one day,

  They met a press-gang crew;

  And Sally she did faint away,

  Whilst Ben he was brought to.

  The Boatswain swore with wicked words,

  Enough to shock a saint.

  That though she did seem in a fit,

  ’Twas nothing but a feint.

  “Come, girl,” said he, “hold up your head,

  He’ll be as good as me;

  For when your swain is in our boat,

  A boatswain he will be.”

  So when they’d made their game of her,

  And taken off her elf,

  She roused, and found she only was

  A coming to herself.

  “And is he gone, and is he gone?”

  She cried, and wept outright:

  “Then I will to the water-side,

  And see him out of sight.”

  A waterman came up to her, —

  “Now, young woman,” said he,

  “If you weep on so, you will make

  Eye-water in the sea.”

  “Alas! they’ve taken my beau, Ben,

  To sail with old Benbow”;

  And her woe began to run afresh,

  As if she’d said Gee woe!

  Says he, “They’ve only taken him

  To the Tender-ship, you see”; —

  “The Tender-ship,” cried Sally Brown,

  What a hard-ship that must be!

  “O! would I were a mermaid now,

  For then I’d follow him;

  But, oh! I’m not a fish-woman,

  And so I cannot swim.

  “Alas! I was not born beneath

  ‘The virgin and the scales,’

  So I must curse my cruel stars,

  And walk about in Wales,”

  Now Ben had sail’d to many a place

  That’s underneath the world;

  But in two years the ship came home,

  And all the sails were furl’d.

  But when he call’d on Sally Brown,

  To see how she went on,

  He found she’d got another Ben,

  Whose Christian name was John.

  “O Sally Brown, O Sally Brown,

  How could you serve me so,

  I’ve met with many a breeze before,

  But never such a blow!”

  Then reading on his ‘bacco box,

  He heaved a heavy sigh,

  And then began to eye his pipe,

  And then to pipe his eye.

  And then he tried to sing “All’s Well,”

  But could not, though he tried;

  His head was turn’d, and so he chew’d

  His pigtail till he died.

  His death, which happen’d in his berth,

  At forty-odd befell:

  They went and told the sexton, and

  The sexton toll’d the bell.

  BACKING THE FAVOURITE.

  ON a pistol, or a knife!

  For I’m weary of my life, —

  My cup has nothing sweet left to flavour it;

  My estate is out at nurse,

  And my heart is like my purse —

  And all through backing of the Favourite!

  At dear O’Neil’s first start,

  I sported all my heart, —

  Oh, Becher, he never marr’d a braver hit!

  For he cross’d her in her race,

  And made her lose her place,

  And there was an end of that Favourite!

  Anon, to mend my chance,

  For the Goddess of the Dance*

  I pin’d and told my enslaver it;

  But she wedded in a canter,

  And made me a Levanter,

  In foreign lands to sigh for the Favourite!

  Then next Miss M. A. Tree

  I adored, so sweetly she

  Could warble like a nightingale and quaver it;

  But she left that course of life

  To be Mr. Bradshaw’s wife,

  And all the world lost on the Favourite!

  But out of sorrow’s surf

  Soon I leap’d upon the turf,

  Where fortune loves to wanton it and waver it;

  But standing on the pet,

  “Oh my bonny, bonny Bet!”

  Black and yellow pull’d short up with the Favourite

  Thus flung by all the crack,

  I resolv’d to cut the pack, —

  The second-raters seem’d then a safer hit!

  So I laid my little odds

  Against Memnon! Oh, ye Gods!

  Am I always to he floored by the Favourite!

  * The late favourite of the King’s Theatre, who left the

  pas seul of life, for a perpetual [Ball]. Is not that her

  effigy now commonly borne about by the Italian image

  vendors — an ethereal form holding a wreath with

  both hands above her head — and her husband, in

  emblem, beneath her foot?

  THE MERMAID OF MARGATE.

  “Alas! what perils do environ

  That man who meddles with a siren!”

  HUDIBRAS.

  On Margate beach, where the sick one roams,

  And the sentimental reads;

  Where the maiden flirts, and the widow comes

  Like the ocean — to cast her weeds; —

  Where urchins wander to pick up shells,

  And the Cit to spy at the ships, —

  Like the water gala at Sadler’s Wells, —

  And the Chandler for watery dips; —

  There’s a maiden sits by the ocean brim,

  As lovely and fair as sin!

  But woe, deep water and woe to him,

  That she snareth like Peter Fin!

  Her head is crowned with pretty sea-wares,

  And her locks are golden loose,

  And seek to her feet, like other folks’ heirs,

/>   To stand, of course, in her shoes!

  And all day long she combeth them well,

  With a sea-shark’s prickly jaw;

  And her mouth is just like a rose-lipped shell,

  The fairest that man e’er saw!

  And the Fishmonger, humble as love may be

  Hath planted his seat by her side;

  “Good even, fair maid! Is thy lover at sea,

  To make thee so watch the tide?”

  She turned about with her pearly brows,

  And clasped him by the hand;

  “Come, love, with me; I’ve a bonny house

  On the golden Goodwin sand.”

  And then she gave him a siren kiss,

  No honeycomb e’er was sweeter;

  Poor wretch! how little he dreamt for this

  That Peter should be salt-Peter:

  And away with her prize to the wave she leapt,

  Not walking, as damsels do,

  With toe and heel, as she ought to have stept,

  But she hopped like a Kangaroo;

  One plunge, and then the victim was blind,

  Whilst they galloped across the tide;

  At last, on the bank he waked in his mind,

  And the Beauty was by his side

  One half on the sand, and half in the sea,

  But his hair began to stiffen;

  For when he looked where her feet should be,

  She had no more feet than Miss Biffen!

  But a scaly tail, of a dolphin’s growth,

  In the dabbling brine did soak:

  At last she opened her pearly mouth,

  Like an oyster, and thus she spoke:

  “You crimpt my father, who was a skate, —

  And my sister you sold — a maid;

  So here remain for a fish’ry fate,

  For lost you are, and betrayed!”

  And away she went, with a sea-gull’s scream,

  And a splash of her saucy tail;

  In a moment he lost the silvery gleam

  That shone on her splended mail!

  The sun went down with a blood-red flame,

  And the sky grew cloudy and black,

  And the tumbling billows like leap-frog came,

  Each over the other’s back!

  Ah me! it had been a beautiful scene,

  With the safe terra-firma round;

  But the green water-hillocks all seem’d to him

  Like those in a churchyard ground;

  And Christians love in the turf to lie,

  Not in watery graves to be;

  Nay, the very fishes will sooner die

  On the land than in the sea.

  And whilst he stood, the watery strife

  Encroached on every hand,

  And the ground decreased, — his moments of life

  Seemed measured, like Time’s, by sand;

  And still the waters foamed in, like ale,

  In front, and on either flank,

  He knew that Goodwin and Co. must fail,

  There was such a run on the bank.

  A little more, and a little more,

  The surges came tumbling in,

  He sang the evening hymn twice o’er,

  And thought of every sin!

  Each flounder and plaice lay cold at his heart,

  As cold as his marble slab;

  And he thought he felt, in every part,

  The pincers of scalded crab.

  The squealing lobsters that he had boiled,

  And the little potted shrimps,

  All the horny prawns he had ever spoiled,

  Gnawed into his soul, like imps!

  And the billows were wandering to and fro,

  And the glorious sun was sunk,

  And Day, getting black in the face, as though

  Of the nightshade she had drunk!

  Had there been but a smuggler’s cargo adrift,

  One tub, or keg, to be seen,

  It might have given his spirits a lift

  Or an anker where Hope might lean!

  But there was not a box or a beam afloat,

  To raft him from that sad place;

  Not a skiff, not a yawl, or a mackerel boat,

  Nor a smack upon Neptune’s face.

  At last, his lingering hopes to buoy,

  He saw a sail and a mast,

  And called “Ahoy!” — but it was not a hoy,

  And so the vessel went past.

  And with saucy wing that flapped in his face,

  The wild bird about him flew,

  With a shrilly scream, that twitted his case,

  “Why, thou art a sea-gull too!”

  And lo! the tide was over his feet;

  Oh! his heart began to freeze,

  And slowly to pulse: — in another beat

  The wave was up to his knees!

  He was deafened amidst the mountain tops,

  And the salt spray blinded his eyes,

  And washed away the other salt drops

  That grief had caused to arise: —

  But just as his body was all afloat,

  And the surges above him broke,

  He was saved from the hungry deep by a boat

  Of Deal — (but builded of oak).

  The skipper gave him a dram, as he lay,

  And chafed his shivering skin;

  And the Angel returned that was flying away

  With the spirit of Peter Fin!

  AS IT FELL UPON A DAY

  Oh! what’s befallen Bessy Brown,

  She stands so squalling in the street;

  She’s let her pitcher tumble down,

  And all the water’s at her feet!

  The little school-boys stood about,

  And laugh’d to see her pumping, pumping;

  Now with a curtsey to the spout,

  And then upon her tiptoes jumping.

  Long time she waited for her neighbours,

  To have their turns: — but she must lose

  The watery wages of her labours, —

  Except a little in her shoes!

  Without a voice to tell her tale,

  And ugly transport in her face;

  All like a jugless nightingale,

  She thinks of her bereaved case.

  At last she sobs — she cries — she screams! —

  And pours her flood of sorrows out,

  From eyes and mouth, in mingled streams,

  Just like the lion on the spout.

  For well poor Bessy knows her mother

  Must lose her tea, for water’s lack,

  That Sukey burns — and baby-brother

  Must be dryrubb’d with huck-a-back!

  A FAIRY TALE.

  On Hounslow heath — and close beside the road,

  As western travellers may oft have seen, —

  A little house some years ago there stood,

  A minikin abode;

  And built like Mr. Birkbeck’s, all of wood:

  The walls of white, the window-shutters green; —

  Four wheels it had at North, South, East, and West

  (Though now at rest),

  On which it used to wander to and fro’,

  Because its master ne’er maintained a rider,

  Like those who trade in Paternoster Row;

  But made his business travel for itself,

  Till he had made his pelf,

  And then retired — if one may call it so,

  Of a roadsider.

  Perchance, the very race and constant riot

  Of stages, long and short, which thereby ran,

  Made him more relish the repose and quiet

  Of his now sedentary caravan;

  Perchance, he loved the ground because ’twas common,

  And so he might impale a strip of soil

  That furnished, by his toil,

  Some dusty greens, for him and his old woman; —

  And five tall hollyhocks, in dingy flower:

  Howbeit, the thoroughf
are did no ways spoil

  His peace, unless, in some unlucky hour,

  A stray horse came, and gobbled up his bow’r!

  But, tired of always looking at the coaches,

  The same to come, — when they had seen them one day!

  And, used to brisker life, both man and wife

  Began to suffer N U E’s approaches,

  And feel retirement like a long wet Sunday; —

  So, having had some quarters of school breeding,

  They turned themselves, like other folks, to reading;

  But setting out where others nigh have done,

  And being ripened in the seventh stage,

  The childhood of old age,

  Began, as other children have begun, —

  Not with the pastorals of Mr. Pope,

  Or Bard of Hope,

  Or Paley ethical, or learned Porson, —

  But spelt, on Sabbaths, in St. Mark, or John,

  And then relax’d themselves with Whittington,

  Or Valentine and Orson —

  But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con,

  And being easily melted in their dotage,

  Slobber’d, — and kept

  Reading, — and wept

  Over the white Cat, in their wooden cottage.

  Thus reading on — the longer

  They read, of course, their childish faith grew stronger

  In Gnomes, and Hags, and Elves, and Giants grim, —

  If talking Trees and Birds revealed to him,

  She saw the flight of Fairyland’s fly-wagons,

  And magic fishes swim

  In puddle ponds, and took old crows for dragons, —

  Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flagons;

  When as it fell upon a summer’s day,

  As the old man sat a feeding