The works of Thomas Hood :: :: University of Virginia Library

The works of Thomas Hood

Comic and serious: In prose and verse. Edited, with notes, by his son

Hood, Thomas (1799-1845)

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

FRAGMENT PROBABLY WRITTEN DURING ILLNESS.

EPIGRAM.

THE SUPERIORITY OF MACHINERY.

EPIGRAM.

STANZAS.

APPENDIX.

Collapse All | Expand All expand section

1842.

[Continued.]

SPRING.

A NEW VERSION.

“ Ham.
The air bites shrewdly—it is very cold.

Hor.
It is a nipping and an eager air.”

—Hamlet.

“Come, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness come!”
Oh! Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason,
How couldst thou thus poor human nature hum?
There's no such season.

The Spring! I shrink and shudder at her name!
For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter!
And suffer from her blows as if they came
From Spring the Fighter.

Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing,
And be her tuneful laureates and upholders,
Who do not feel as if they had a Spring
Pour'd down their shoulders!

Let others eulogise her floral shows,
From me they cannot win a single stanza,
I know her blooms are in full blow—and so's
The Influenza.

Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale,
Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at,
Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale,
Are things I sneeze at!

Fair is the vernal quarter of the year!
And fair its early buddings and its blowings—
But just suppose Consumption's seeds appear
With other sowings!

For me, I find, when eastern winds are high,
A frigid, not a genial inspiration;
Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb, defy
An inflammation.

Smitten by breezes from the land of plague,
To me all vernal luxuries are fables,
Oh! where's the Spring in a rheumatic leg,
Stiff as a table's?

I limp in agony,—I wheeze and cough;
And quake with Ague, that Great Agitator;
Nor dream, before July, of leaving off
My Respirator.

What wonder if in May itself I lack
A peg for laudatory verse to hang on?—
Spring mild and gentle!—yes, as Spring-heeled Jack
To those he sprang on.

In short, whatever panegyrics lie
In fulsome odes too many to be cited,
The tenderness of Spring is all my eye,
And that is blighted!

THE TURTLES.

A FABLE.

“The rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle.” —Byron.

One day, it was before a civic dinner,
Two London Aldermen, no matter which,
Cordwainer, Girdler, Patten-maker, Skinner—
But both were florid, corpulent, and rich,
And both right fond of festive demolition,
Set forth upon a secret expedition.
Yet not, as might be fancied from the token,
To Pudding Lane, Pie Corner, or the Street
Of Bread, or Grub, or anything to eat,
Or drink, as Milk, or Vintry, or Portsoken,
But eastward to that more aquatic quarter,
Where folks take water,
Or bound on voyages, secure a berth
For Antwerp or Ostend, Dundee or Perth,
Calais, Boulogne, or any Port on earth!

Jostled and jostling, through the mud,
Peculiar to the Town of Lud,
Down narrow streets and crooked lanes they dived,
Past many a gusty avenue, through which
Came yellow fog, and smell of pitch,
From barge, and boat, and dusky wharf derived;
With darker fumes, brought eddying by the draught,
From loco-smoko-motive craft;
Mingling with scents of butter, cheese, and gammons,
Tea, coffee, sugar, pickles, rosin, wax,
Hides, tallow, Russia-matting, hemp and flax,
Salt-cod, red herrings, sprats, and kipper'd salmons,
Nuts, oranges, and lemons,
Each pungent spice, and aromatic gum,
Gas, pepper, soaplees, brandy, gin, and rum;
Alamode-beef and greens—the London soil—
Glue, coal, tobacco, turpentine, and oil,
Bark, assafœtida, squills, vitriol, hops,
In short, all whiffs, and sniffs, and puffs, and snuffs,
From metals, minerals, and dyewood stuffs,
Fruits, victual, drink, solidities, or slops—
In flasks, casks, bales, trucks, waggons, taverns, shops,
Boats, lighters, cellars, wharfs, and warehouse-tops,
That, as we walk upon the river's ridge,
Assault the nose—below the bridge.

A walk, however, as tradition tells,
That once a poor blind Tobit used to choose,
Because, incapable of other views,
He met with “such a sight of smells.”

But on, and on, and on,
In spite of all unsavoury shocks,

Progress the stout Sir Peter and Sir John,
Steadily steering ship-like for the docks—
And now they reach a place the Muse, unwilling,
Recalls for female slang and vulgar doing,
The famous Gate of Billing
That does not lead to cooing—
And now they pass that House that is so ugly
A Customer to people looking “smuggley”—
And now along that fatal Hill they pass
Where centuries ago an Oxford bled,
And proved—too late to save his life, alas!—
That he was “off his head.”

At last before a lofty brick-built pile
Sir Peter stopp'd, and with mysterious smile
Tingled a bell that served to bring
The wire-drawn genius of the ring,
A species of commercial Samuel Weller—
To whom Sir Peter—tipping him a wink,
And something else to drink—
“Show us the cellar.”

Obsequious bow'd the man, and led the way
Down sundry flights of stairs, where windows small,
Dappled with mud, let in a dingy ray—
A dirty tax, if they were tax'd at all.

At length they came into a cellar damp,
With venerable cobwebs fringed around,
A cellar of that stamp
Which often harbours vintages renown'd,
The feudal Hock, or Burgundy the courtly.

With sherry, brown or golden,
Or port, so olden,
Bereft of body 'tis no longer portly—
But old or otherwise—to be veracious—
That cobwebb'd cellar, damp, and dim, and spacious,
Held nothing crusty—but crustaceous.

Prone, on the chilly floor,
Five splendid Turtles—such a five!
Natives of some West Indian shore,
Were flapping all alive,
Late landed from the Jolly Planter's yawl—
A sight whereon the dignitaries fix'd
Their eager eyes, with ecstacy unmix'd,
Like fathers that behold their infants crawl,
Enjoying every little kick and sprawl.
Nay—far from fatherly the thoughts they bred,
Poor loggerheads from far Ascension ferried!
The Aldermen too plainly wish'd them dead
And Aldermanbury'd!

“There!” cried Sir Peter, with an air
Triumphant as an ancient victor's,
And pointing to the creatures rich and rare,
“There's picters!”

“Talk of Olympic Games! They're not worth mention;
The real prize for wrestling is when Jack,
In Providence or Ascension,
Can throw a lively turtle on its back!”

“Aye!” cried Sir John, and with a score of nods,
Thoughtful of classical symposium,

“There's food for Gods!
There's nectar! there's ambrosium!
There's food for Roman Emperors to eat—
Oh, there had been a treat
(Those ancient names will sometimes hobble us)
For Helio-gobble-us!”

“There were a feast for Alexander's Feast!
The real sort—none of your mock or spurious!”
And then he mention'd Aldermen deceased,
And “Epicurius,”
And how Tertullian had enjoy'd such foison;
And speculated on that verdigrease
That isn't poison.

“Talk of your Spring, and verdure, and all that
Give me green fat!
As for your Poets with their groves of myrtles
And billing turtles,
Give me, for poetry, them Turtles there,
A-billing in a bill of fare!”

“Of all the things I ever swallow—
Good, well-dressed turtle beats them hollow—
It almost makes me wish, I vow,
To have two stomachs, like a cow!”
And lo! as with the cud, an inward thrill
Upheaved his waistcoat and disturb'd his frill,
His mouth was oozing and he work'd his jaw—
“I almost think that I could eat one raw!”

And thus, as “inward love breeds outward talk,”
The portly pair continued to discourse;

And then—as Gray describes of life's divorce,—
With “longing lingering look” prepared to walk,—
Having thro' one delighted sense, at least,
Enjoy'd a sort of Barmecidal feast,
And with prophetic gestures, strange to see,
Forestall'd the civic Banquet yet to be,
Its callipash and callipee!

A pleasant prospect—but alack!
Scarcely each Alderman had turn'd his back,
When seizing on the moment so propitious,
And having learn'd that they were so delicious
To bite and sup,
From praises so high flown and injudicious,—
And nothing could be more pernicious!
The turtles fell to work, and ate each other up!

MORAL.

Never, from folly or urbanity,
Praise people thus profusely to their faces,
Till quite in love with their own graces,
They're eaten up by vanity!

THE ELM TREE.

A DREAM IN THE WOODS.

“And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees.”
—As You Like It.

I. [PART I.]

'Twas in a shady Avenue,
Where lofty Elms abound—
And from a Tree
There came to me
A sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmur'd overhead,
And sometimes underground.

Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh,
Amid the boughs to moan;
It mutter'd in the stem, and then
The roots took up the tone;
As if beneath the dewy grass
The dead began to groan.

No breeze there was to stir the leaves;
No bolts that tempests launch,
To rend the trunk or rugged bark;
No gale to bend the branch;
No quake of earth to heave the roots,
That stood so stiff and staunch.

No bird was preening up aloft,
To rustle with its wing;
No squirrel, in its sport or fear,

From bough to bough to spring;
The solid bole
Had ne'er a hole
To hide a living thing!

No scooping hollow cell to lodge
A furtive beast or fowl,
The martin, bat,
Or forest cat
That nightly loves to prowl,
Nor ivy nook so apt to shroud
The moping, snoring owl.

But still the sound was in my ear,
A sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmur'd overhead,
And sometimes underground—
'Twas in a shady Avenue
Where lofty Elms abound.

O hath the Dryad still a tongue
In this ungenial clime?
Have Sylvan Spirits still a voice
As in the classic prime—
To make the forest voluble,
As in the olden time?

The olden time is dead and gone;
Its years have fill'd their sum—
And e'en in Greece—her native Greece—
The Sylvan Nymph is dumb—
From ash, and beech, and aged oak,
No classic whispers come.

From Poplar, Pine, and drooping Birch,
And fragrant Linden Trees;
No living sound
E'er hovers round,
Unless the vagrant breeze,
The music of the merry bird,
Or hum of busy bees.

But busy bees forsake the Elm
That bears no bloom aloft—
The Finch was in the hawthorn-bush,
The Blackbird in the croft;
And among the firs the brooding Dove,
That else might murmur soft.

Yet still I heard that solemn sound,
And sad it was to boot,
From ev'ry overhanging bough,
And each minuter shoot;
From rugged trunk and mossy rind,
And from the twisted root.

From these,—a melancholy moan;
From those,—a dreary sigh;
As if the boughs were wintry bare,
And wild winds sweeping by—
Whereas the smallest fleecy cloud
Was stedfast in the sky.

No sign or touch of stirring air
Could either sense observe—
The zephyr had not breath enough

The thistle-down to swerve,
Or force the filmy gossamers
To take another curve.

In still and silent slumber hush'd
All Nature seem'd to be:
From heaven above, or earth beneath,
No whisper came to me—
Except the solemn sound and sad
From that Mysterious Tree!

A hollow, hollow, hollow sound,
As is that dreamy roar
When distant billows boil and bound
Along a shingly shore—
But the ocean brim was far aloof,
A hundred miles or more.

No murmur of the gusty sea,
No tumult of the beach,
However they may foam and fret,
The bounded sense could reach—
Methought the trees in mystic tongue
Were talking each to each!—

Mayhap, rehearsing ancient tales
Of greenwood love or guilt,
Of whisper'd vows
Beneath their boughs;
Or blood obscurely spilt;
Or of that near-hand Mansion House
A Royal Tudor built.

Perchance, of booty won or shared
Beneath the starry cope—
Or where the suicidal wretch
Hung up the fatal rope;
Or Beauty kept an evil tryste,
Insnared by Love and Hope.

Of graves, perchance, untimely scoop'd
At midnight dark and dank—
And what is underneath the sod
Whereon the grass is rank—
Of old intrigues,
And privy leagues,
Tradition leaves in blank.

Of traitor lips that mutter'd plots—
Of Kin who fought and fell—
God knows the undiscover'd schemes,
The arts and acts of Hell,
Perform'd long generations since,
If trees had tongues to tell!

With wary eyes, and ears alert,
As one who walks afraid,
I wander'd down the dappled path
Of mingled light and shade—
How sweetly gleam'd that arch of blue
Beyond the green arcade!

How cheerly shone the glimpse of Heav'n
Beyond that verdant aisle!
All overarch'd with lofty elms,
That quench'd the light, the while,

As dim and chill
As serves to fill
Some old Cathedral pile!

And many a gnarlèd trunk was there,
That ages long had stood,
Till Time had wrought them into shapes
Like Pan's fantastic brood;
Or still more foul and hideous forms
That Pagans carve in wood!

A crouching Satyr lurking here—
And there a Goblin grim—
As staring full of demon life
As Gothic sculptor's whim—
A marvel it had scarcely been
To hear a voice from him!

Some whisper from that horrid mouth
Of strange, unearthly tone;
Or wild infernal laugh, to chill
One's marrow in the bone.
But no—it grins like rigid Death,
And silent as a stone!

As silent as its fellows be,
For all is mute with them—
The branch that climbs the leafy roof—
The rough and mossy stem—
The crooked root,
And tender shoot,
Where hangs the dewy gem.

One mystic Tree alone there is,
Of sad and solemn sound—
That sometimes murmurs overhead,
And sometimes underground—
In all that shady Avenue,
Where lofty Elms abound.

II. PART II.

The Scene is changed! No green Arcade,
No Trees all ranged a-row—
But scatter'd like a beaten host,
Dispersing to and fro;
With here and there a sylvan corse,
That fell before the foe.

The Foe that down in yonder dell
Pursues his daily toil;
As witness many a prostrate trunk,
Bereft of leafy spoil,
Hard by its wooden stump, whereon
The adder loves to coil.

Alone he works—his ringing blows
Have banish'd bird and beast;
The Hind and Fawn have canter'd off
A hundred yards at least;
And on the maple's lofty top,
The linnet's song has ceased.

No eye his labour overlooks,
Or when he takes his rest;
Except the timid thrush that peeps
Above her secret nest,
Forbid by love to leave the young
Beneath her speckled breast.

The Woodman's heart is in his work,
His axe is sharp and good:
With sturdy arm and steady aim
He smites the gaping wood;
From distant rocks
His lusty knocks
Re-echo many a rood.

His axe is keen, his arm is strong;
The muscles serve him well;
His years have reach'd an extra span,
The number none can tell;
But still his lifelong task has been
The Timber Tree to fell.

Through Summer's parching sultriness,
And Winter's freezing cold,
From sapling youth
To virile growth,
And Age's rigid mould,
His energetic axe hath rung
Within that Forest old.

Aloft, upon his poising steel
The vivid sunbeams glance—
About his head and round his feet

The forest shadows dance;
And bounding from his russet coat
The acorn drops askance.

His face is like a Druid's face,
With wrinkles furrow'd deep,
And tann'd by scorching suns as brown
As corn, that's ripe to reap;
But the hair on brow, and cheek, and chin,
Is white as wool of sheep.

His frame is like a giant's frame;
His legs are long and stark;
His arms like limbs of knotted yew;
His hands like rugged bark;
So he felleth still
With right good will,
As if to build an Ark!

Oh! well within His fatal path
The fearful Tree might quake
Through every fibre, twig, and leaf,
With aspen tremor shake;
Through trunk and root,
And branch and shoot,
A low complaining make!

Oh! well to Him the Tree might breathe
A sad and solemn sound,
A sigh that murmur'd overhead,
And groans from underground;
As in that shady Avenue
Where lofty Elms abound!

But calm and mute the Maple stands,
The Plane, the Ash, the Fir,
The Elm, the Beech, the drooping Birch,
Without the least demur;
And e'en the Aspen's hoary leaf
Makes no unusual stir.

The Pines—those old gigantic Pines,
That writhe—recalling soon
The famous Human Group that writhes
With Snakes in wild festoon—
In ramous wrestlings interlaced
A Forest Läocoon—

Like Titans of primeval girth
By tortures overcome,
Their brown enormous limbs they twine
Bedew'd with tears of gum—
Fierce agonies that ought to yell,
But, like the marble, dumb.

Nay, yonder blasted Elm that stands
So like a man of sin,
Who, frantic, flings his arms abroad
To feel the Worm within—
For all that gesture, so intense,
It makes no sort of din!

An universal silence reigns
In rugged bark or peel,
Except that very trunk which rings
Beneath the biting steel—
Meanwhile the Woodman plies his axe
With unrelenting zeal!

No rustic song is on his tongue,
No whistle on his lips;
But with a quiet thoughtfulness
His trusty tool he grips,
And, stroke on stroke, keeps hacking out
The bright and flying chips.

Stroke after stroke, with frequent dint
He spreads the fatal gash;
Till, lo! the remnant fibres rend,
With harsh and sudden crash,
And on the dull resounding turf
The jarring branches lash!

Oh! now the Forest Trees may sigh,
The Ash, the Poplar tall,
The Elm, the Beech, the drooping Birch,
The Aspens—one and all,
With solemn groan
And hollow moan
Lament a comrade's fall!

A goodly Elm, of noble girth,
That, thrice the human span—
While on their variegated course
The constant Seasons ran—
Through gale, and hail, and fiery bolt,
Had stood erect as Man.

But now, like mortal Man himself,
Struck down by hand of God,
Or heathen Idol tumbled prone

Beneath th' Eternal's nod,
In all its giant bulk and length
It lies along the sod!—

Ay, now the Forest Trees may grieve
And make a common moan
Around that patriarchal trunk
So newly overthrown;
And with a murmur recognise
A doom to be their own!

The Echo sleeps: the idle axe,
A disregarded tool,
Lies crushing with its passive weight
The toad's reputed stool—
The Woodman wipes his dewy brow
Within the shadows cool.

No Zephyr stirs: the ear may catch
The smallest insect-hum;
But on the disappointed sense
No mystic whispers come;
No tone of sylvan sympathy,
The Forest Trees are dumb.

No leafy noise, nor inward voice,
No sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmurs overhead,
And sometimes underground;
As in that shady Avenue,
Where lofty Elms abound!

III. PART III.

The deed is done: the Tree is low
That stood so long and firm;
The Woodman and his axe are gone,
His toil has found its term;
And where he wrought the speckled Thrush
Securely hunts the worm.

The Cony from the sandy bank
Has run a rapid race,
Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern,
To seek the open space;
And on its haunches sits erect
To clean its furry face.

The dappled Fawn is close at hand,
The Hind is browsing near,—
And on the Larch's lowest bough
The Ousel whistles clear;
But checks the note
Within its throat,
As choked with sudden fear!

With sudden fear her wormy quest
The Thrush abruptly quits—
Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern
The startled Cony flits;
And on the Larch's lowest bough
No more the Ousel sits.

With sudden fear
The dappled Deer
Effect a swift escape;
But well might bolder creatures start,
And fly, or stand agape,
With rising hair, and curdled blood,
To see so grim a Shape!

The very sky turns pale above;
The earth grows dark beneath;
The human Terror thrills with cold
And draws a shorter breath—
An universal panic owns
The dread approach of Death!

With silent pace, as shadows come,
And dark as shadows be,
The grisly Phantom takes his stand
Beside the fallen Tree,
And scans it with his gloomy eyes,
And laughs with horrid glee—

A dreary laugh and desolate,
Where mirth is void and null,
As hollow as its echo sounds
Within the hollow skull—
“Whoever laid this tree along,
His hatchet was not dull!

“The human arm and human tool
Have done their duty well!
But after sound of ringing axe

Must sound the ringing knell;
When Elm or Oak
Have felt the stroke,
My turn it is to fell!

“No passive unregarded tree,
A senseless thing of wood,
Wherein the sluggish sap ascends
To swell the vernal bud—
But conscious, moving, breathing trunks
That throb with living blood!

“No forest Monarch yearly clad
In mantle green or brown;
That unrecorded lives, and falls
By hand of rustic clown—
But Kings who don the purple robe,
And wear the jewell'd crown.

“Ah! little recks the Royal mind,
Within his Banquet Hall,
While tapers shine and Music breathes
And Beauty leads the Ball,—
He little recks the oaken plank
Shall be his palace wall!

“Ah, little dreams the haughty Peer,
The while his Falcon flies—
Or on the blood-bedabbled turf
The antler'd quarry dies—
That in his own ancestral Park
The narrow dwelling lies!

“But haughty Peer and mighty King
One doom shall overwhelm!
The oaken cell
Shall lodge him well
Whose sceptre ruled a realm—
While he, who never knew a home,
Shall find it in the Elm!

“The tatter'd, lean, dejected wretch,
Who begs from door to door,
And dies within the cressy ditch,
Or on the barren moor,
The friendly Elm shall lodge and clothe
That houseless man and poor!

“Yea, this recumbent rugged trunk,
That lies so long and prone,
With many a fallen acorn-cup,
And mast, and firry cone—
This rugged trunk shall hold its share
Of mortal flesh and bone!

“A Miser hoarding heaps of gold,
But pale with ague-fears—
A Wife lamenting love's decay,
With secret cruel tears,
Distilling bitter, bitter drops
From sweets of former years—

“A Man within whose gloomy mind
Offence had deeply sunk,
Who out of fierce Revenge's cup

Hath madly, darkly drunk—
Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleep
Within this very trunk!

“This massy trunk that lies along,
And many more must fall—
For the very knave
Who digs the grave,
The man who spreads the pall,
And he who tolls the funeral bell,
The Elm shall have them all!

“The tall abounding Elm that grows
In hedgerows up and down;
In field and forest, copse and park,
And in the peopled town,
With colonies of noisy rooks
That nestle on its crown.

“And well th' abounding Elm may grow
In field and hedge so rife,
In forest, copse, and wooded park,
And 'mid the city's strife,
For, every hour that passes by
Shall end a human life!”

The Phantom ends: the shade is gone;
The sky is clear and bright;
On turf, and moss, and fallen Tree,
There glows a ruddy light;
And bounding through the golden fern
The Rabbit comes to bite.

The Thrush's mate beside her sits
And pipes a merry lay;
The Dove is in the evergreens;
And on the Larch's spray
The Fly-bird flutters up and down,
To catch its tiny prey.

The gentle Hind and dappled Fawn
Are coming up the glade;
Each harmless furr'd and feather'd thing
Is glad, and not afraid—
But on my sadden'd spirit still
The Shadow leaves a shade.

A secret, vague, prophetic gloom,
As though by certain mark
I knew the fore-appointed Tree,
Within whose rugged bark
This warm and living frame shall find
Its narrow house and dark.

That mystic Tree which breathed to me
A sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmur'd overhead,
And sometimes underground;
Within that shady Avenue
Where lofty Elms abound.

MORE HULLAH-BALOO.

“Loud as from numbers without number.” —Milton.

“You may do it extempore, for it's nothing but roaring.” Quince.

Amongst the great inventions of this age,
Which ev'ry other century surpasses,
Is one,—just now the rage,—
Call'd “Singing for all Classes”—
That is, for all the British millions,
And billions,
And quadrillions,
Not to name Quintilians,
That now, alas! have no more ear than asses,
To learn to warble like the birds in June,
In time and tune,
Correct as clocks, and musical as glasses!

In fact, a sort of plan,
Including gentleman as well as yokel,
Public or private man,
To call out a Militia,—only Vocal
Instead of Local,
And not designed for military follies,
But keeping still within the civil border,
To form with mouths in open order,
And sing in volleys.

Whether this grand harmonic scheme
Will ever get beyond a dream,

And tend to British happiness and glory,
Maybe no, and maybe yes,
Is more than I pretend to guess—
However, here's my story.

In one of those small, quiet streets,
Where Business retreats,
To shun the daily bustle and the noise
The shoppy Strand enjoys,
But Law, Joint-Companies, and Life Assurance
Find past endurance—
In one of those back streets, to Peace so dear,
The other day, a ragged wight
Began to sing with all his might,
“I have a silent sorrow here!”

The place was lonely; not a creature stirr'd
Except some little dingy bird;
Or vagrant cur that sniff'd along,
Indifferent to the Son of Song;
No truant errand-boy, or Doctor's lad,
No idle filch or lounging cad,
No Pots encumber'd with diurnal beer,
No printer's devil with an author's proof,
Or housemaid on an errand far aloof,
Linger'd the tatter'd Melodist to hear—
Who yet, confound him! bawl'd as loud
As if he had to charm a London crowd,
Singing beside the public way,
Accompanied—instead of violin,
Flute, or piano, chiming in—
By rumbling cab, and omnibus, and dray,

A van with iron bars to play staccato,
Or engine obligato—
In short, without one instrument vehicular
(Not ev'n a truck, to be particular),
There stood the rogue and roar'd,
Unasked and unencored,
Enough to split the organs call'd auricular!

Heard in that quiet place,
Devoted to a still and studious race,
The noise was quite appalling!
To seek a fitting simile and spin it,
Appropriate to his calling,
His voice had all Lablache's body in it;
But oh! the scientific tone it lack'd,
And was, in fact,
Only a forty-boatswain-power of bawling!

'Twas said, indeed, for want of vocal nous,
The stage had banish'd him when he attempted it,
For tho' his voice completely fill'd the house,
It also emptied it.
However, there he stood
Vociferous—a ragged don!
And with his iron pipes laid on
A row to all the neighbourhood.

In vain were sashes closed
And doors against the persevering Stentor,
Though brick, and glass, and solid oak opposed,
Th' intruding voice would enter,
Heedless of ceremonial or decorum,
Den, office, parlour, study, and sanctorum;

Where clients and attorneys, rogues, and fools,
Ladies, and masters who attended schools,
Clerks, agents, all provided with their tools,
Were sitting upon sofas, chairs, and stools,
With shelves, pianos, tables, desks, before 'em—
How it did bore 'em!

Louder, and louder still,
The fellow sang with horrible goodwill,
Curses both loud and deep his sole gratuities,
From scribes bewilder'd making many a flaw
In deeds of law
They had to draw;
With dreadful incongruities
In posting ledgers, making up accounts
To large amounts,
Or casting up annuities—
Stunn'd by that voice, so loud and hoarse,
Against whose overwhelming force
No in-voice stood a chance, of course!

The Actuary pshaw'd and pish'd,
And knit his calculating brows, and wish'd
The singer “a bad life”—a mental murther!
The Clerk, resentful of a blot and blunder,
Wish'd the musician further,
Poles distant—and no wonder!
For Law and Harmony tend far asunder—
The lady could not keep her temper calm,
Because the sinner did not sing a psalm—
The Fiddler in the very same position
As Hogarth's chafed musician
(Such prints require but cursory reminders)

Came and made faces at the wretch beneath,
And wishing for his foe between his teeth,
(Like all impatient elves
That spite themselves)
Ground his own grinders.

But still with unrelenting note,
Though not a copper came of it, in verity,
The horrid fellow with the ragged coat,
And iron throat,
Heedless of present honour and prosperity,
Sang like a Poet singing for posterity,
In penniless reliance—
And, sure, the most immortal Man of Rhyme
Never set Time
More thoroughly at defiance!

From room to room, from floor to floor,
From Number One to Twenty-four
The Nuisance bellow'd, till all patience lost,
Down came Miss Frost,
Expostulating at her open door—
“Peace, monster, peace!
Where is the New Police!
I vow I cannot work, or read, or pray,
Don't stand there bawling, fellow, don't!
You really send my serious thoughts astray,
Do—there's a dear good man—do go away.”
Says he, “I won't!”

The spinster pull'd her door to with a slam,
That sounded like a wooden d---n,

For so some moral people, strictly loth
To swear in words, however up,
Will crash a curse in setting down a cup,
Or through a doorpost vent a banging oath—
In fact, this sort of physical transgression
Is really no more difficult to trace
Than in a given face
A very bad expression.

However, in she went,
Leaving the subject of her discontent
To Mr. Jones's Clerk at Number Ten;
Who, throwing up the sash,
With accents rash,
Thus hail'd the most vociferous of men:
“Come, come, I say old fellor, stop your chant!
I cannot write a sentence—no one can't!
So just pack up your trumps,
And stir your stumps—”
Says he, “I shan't!”

Down went the sash
As if devoted to “eternal smash”
(Another illustration
Of acted imprecation),
While close at hand, uncomfortably near,
The independent voice, so loud and strong,
And clanging like a gong,
Roar'd out again the everlasting song,
“I have a silent sorrow here!”

The thing was hard to stand!
The Music-master could not stand it—

But rushing forth with fiddle-stick in hand,
As savage as a bandit,
Made up directly to the tatter'd man,
And thus in broken sentences began—
But playing first a prelude of grimaces,
Twisting his features to the strangest shapes,
So that to guess his subject from his faces,
He meant to give a lecture upon apes—

“Com—com—I say!
You go away!
Into two parts my head you split—
My fiddle cannot hear himself a bit,
When I do play—
You have no bis'ness in a place so still!
Can you not come another day?”
Says he—“I will.”

“No—no—you scream and bawl!
You must not come at all!
You have no rights, by rights, to beg—
You have not one off leg—
You ought to work—you have not some complaint—
You are not cripple in your back or bones—
Your voice is strong enough to break some stones”—
Says he—“It aint!”

“I say you ought to labour!
You are in a young case,
You have not sixty years upon your face,
To come and beg your neighbour,
And discompose his music with a noise
More worse than twenty boys—

Look what a street it is for quiet!
No cart to make a riot,
No coach, no horses, no postilion,
If you will sing, I say, it is not just
To sing so loud.”—Says he, “I must!
I'm singing for the million!”

THE SEASON.

Summer's gone and over!
Fogs are falling down;
And with russet tinges
Autumn's doing brown.

Boughs are daily rifled
By the gusty thieves,
And the Book of Nature
Getteth short of leaves.

Round the tops of houses,
Swallows, as they flit,
Give, like yearly tenants,
Notices to quit.

Skies, of fickle temper,
Weep by turns, and laugh—
Night and Day together
Taking half-and-half.

So September endeth—
Cold, and most perverse—
But the Month that follows,
Sure will pinch us worse!

LEAR.

A poor old king, with sorrow for my crown,
Throned upon straw, and mantled with the wind—
For pity, my own tears have made me blind
That I might never see my children's frown;
And, may be, Madness, like a friend, has thrown
A folded fillet over my dark mind,
So that unkindly speech may sound for kind—
Albeit I know not.—I am childish grown—
And have not gold to purchase wit withal—
I that have once maintain'd most royal state—
A very bankrupt now that may not call
My child my child—all beggar'd save in tears,
Wherewith I daily weep an old man's fate,
Foolish—and blind—and overcome with years!

123

SONG. TO MY WIFE.

Those eyes that were so bright, love,
Have now a dimmer shine,—
But all they've lost in light, love,
Was what they gave to mine;
But still those orbs reflect, love,
The beams of former hours,—
That ripen'd all my joys, my love,
And tinted all my flowers!

Those locks were brown to see, love,
That now are turned so gray,—
But the years were spent with me, love,
That stole their hue away;
Thy locks no longer share, love,
The golden glow of noon,—
But I've seen the world look fair, my love,
When silver'd by the moon!

That brow was smooth and fair, love,
That looks so shaded now,—
But for me it bore the care, love,
That spoiled a bonny brow.
And though no longer there, love,
The gloss it had of yore,—
Still Memory looks and dotes, my love,
Where Hope admired before!