The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Comic Poems of Thomas Hood.

MARY, you know I’ve no love-nonsense,
And, though I pen on such a day,
I don’t mean flirting, on my conscience,
Or writing in the courting way.

Though Beauty hasn’t form’d your feature,
It saves you, p’rhaps, from being vain,
And many a poor unhappy creature
May wish that she was half as plain.

Your virtues would not rise an inch,
Although your shape was two foot taller,
And wisely you let others pinch
Great waists and feet to make them smaller.

You never try to spare your hands
From getting red by household duty,
But, doing all that it commands,
Their coarseness is a moral beauty.

Let Susan flourish her fair arms
And at your old legs sneer and scoff,
But let her laugh, for you have charms
That nobody knows nothing of.

TO A BAD RIDER.

TO A CRITIC.

O CRUEL One! How littel dost thou knowe
How manye poetes with Unhappyenesse
Thou mayest have slaine; are they beganne to blowe
Like to yonge Buddes in theyre firste sappyenesse!
Even as Pinkes from littel Pipinges growe
Great Poetes yet maye come of singinges smalle,
Which, if an hungrede Worme doth gnawe belowe,
Fold up theyre strypëd leaves, and dye withalle.
Alake, that pleasaunt Flowre must fayde and falle
Because a Grubbe hath ete into yts Hede,—
That els had growne soe fayre and eke soe talle
To-wardes the Heaven, and opened forthe and sprede
Its blossomes to the Sunne for Menne to rede
In soe brighte hues of Lovelinesse indeede!

THE SWEETS OF YOUTH.

“Sweets to the sweet—farewell.”—Hamlet.

TIME was I liked a cheesecake well enough—
All human children have a sweetish taste;
I used to revel in a pie, or puff;
Or tart—we all were Tartars in our youth
To meet with jam or jelly was good luck,
All candies most complacently I crumped,
A stick of liquorice was good to suck,
And sugar was as often liked as lumped!
On treacle’s “linkèd sweetness long drawn out,”
Or honey I could feast like any fly;
I thrilled when lollipops were hawked about;
How pleased to compass hard-bake or bull’s-eye;
How charmed if Fortune in my power cast
Elecampane—but that campaign is past.

TO HENRIETTA,[8]

ON HER DEPARTURE FOR CALAIS.

WHEN little people go abroad, wherever they may roam,
They will not just be treated as they used to be at home;
So take a few promiscuous hints, to warn you in advance,
Of how a little English girl will perhaps be served in France.

Of course you will be Frenchified; and first, it’s my belief,
They’ll dress you in their foreign style as à-la-mode as beef,
With a little row of beehives, as a border to your frock,
And a pair of frilly trousers, like a little bantam cock.

But first they’ll seize your bundle (if you have one) in a crack,
And tie it with a tape by way of bustle on your back;
And make your waist so high or low, your shape will be a riddle,
For anyhow you’ll never have your middle in the middle.

Your little English sandals for a while will hold together,
But woe betide you when the stones have worn away the leather;
For they’ll poke your little pettitoes (and there will be a hobble!)
In such a pair of shoes as none but carpenters can cobble!

What next?—to fill your head with French to match the native girls
In scraps of Galignani they’ll screw up your little curls;
And they’ll take their nouns and verbs, and some bits of verse and prose,
And pour them in your ears that you may spout them through your nose.

You’ll have to learn a chou is quite another sort of thing
To that you put your foot in; that a belle is not to ring;
That a corne is not the nubble that brings trouble to your toes;
Nor peut-être a potato, as some Irish folks suppose.

No, no, they have no murphies there, for supper or for lunch,
But you may get in course of time a pomme de terre to munch,
With which, as you perforce must do as Calais folks are doing,
You’ll maybe have to gobble up the frog that went a wooing!

But pray at meals, remember this, the French are so polite,
No matter what you eat or drink, “whatever is, is right!”
So when you’re told at dinner-time that some delicious stew
Is cat instead of rabbit, you must answer “Tant mi—eux!”

For little folks who go abroad, wherever they may roam,
They cannot just be treated as they used to be at home;
So take a few promiscuous hints, to warn you in advance,
Of how a little English girl will perhaps be served in France!

HINTS TO PAUL PRY.

OH, pleasing, teasing, Mr. Pry,
Dear Paul—but not Virginia’s Paul,
As some might haply deem, to spy
The umbrella thou art arm’d withal,
Cool hat, and ample pantaloons,
Proper for hot and tropic noons;—

Oh no! for thou wert never born
To watch the barren sea and cloud
In any desert isle forlorn—
Thy home is always in a crowd
Drawn nightly, such is thy stage luck,
By Liston—that dramatic Buck.

True as the evening’s primrose flower,
True as the watchman to his beat,
Thou dost attend upon the hour
And house, in old Haymarket Street.
Oh, surely thou art much miscall’d,
Still Paul—yet we are never pall’d!

Friend of the keyhole and the crack,
That lets thee pry within and pore,
Thy very nose betrays the knack—
Upturn’d through kissing with the door;
A peeping trick that each dear friend
Sends thee to Coventry, to mend!

Thy bended body shows thy bent,
Inclined to news in every place;
Thy gossip mouth and eyes intent,
Stand each a query in thy face;
Thy hat a curious hat appears,
Pricking its brims up like thy ears;

Thy pace, it is an ambling trot,
To post thee sooner here and there,
To every house where thou shouldst not;
In gait, in garb, in face, and air,
The true eavesdropper we perceive,
Not merely dropping in at eve,—

But morn and noon, through all the span
Of day,—to disconcert and fret,
Unwelcome guest to every man,
A kind of dun, without a debt,
Well cursed by porter in the hall,
For calling when there is no call.

Harm-watching, harm thou still dost catch—
That rule should save thee many a sore;
But watch thou wilt, and, like a watch,
A box attends thee at the door—
The household menials e’en begin
To show thee out ere thou art in!

Old Grasp regards thee with a frown,
Old Hardy marks thee for a shot,
Young Stanley longs to knock thee down,
And Subtle mourns her ruin’d plot,
And bans thy bones—alas! for why!
A tender curiosity!

Oh leave the Hardys to themselves—
Leave Mrs. Subtle to her dreams—
’Tis true that they were laid on shelves—
Leave Stanley, junior, to his schemes;
More things there are, the public sigh
To know the rights of, Mr. Pry!

There’s Lady L—— the late Miss P——,
Miss P—— and lady both were late,
And two in ten can scarce agree,
For why the title had to wait;
But thou mightst learn from her own lips
What wind detain’d the lady-ship?

Or Mr. P.!—the sire that nursed
Thy youth, and made thee what thou art,
Who form’d thy prying genius first—
(Thou wottest his untender part),
’Twould be a friendly call and fit,
To know “how soon he hopes to sit.”

Some people long to know the truth
Whether Miss T. does mean to try
For Gibbon once again—in sooth,
Thou mightst indulge them, Mr. Pry;
A verbal extract from the brief
Would give some spinsters great relief!

Suppose, dear Pry, thou wert to dodge
The porter’s glance, and just drop in
At Windsor’s shy sequester’d lodge,
(Thou wilt, if any man can win
His way so far)—and kindly bring
Poor Cob’s petition to the king.

There’s Mrs. Coutts—hath she outgrown
The compass of a prying eye?
And, ah! there is the Great Unknown,
A man that makes the curious sigh;
’Twere worthy of your genius quite
To bring that lurking man to light.

O, come abroad, with curious hat,
And patch’d umbrella, curious too—
To poke with this, and pry with that—
Search all our scandal through and through,
And treat the whole world like a pie
Made for thy finger, Mr. Pry!

ON STEAM.

BY AN UNDER-HOSTLER.

I WISH I livd a Thowsen year Ago
Wurking for Sober six and Seven milers
And dubble Stages runnen safe and slo
The Orsis cum in Them days to the Bilers
But Now by means of Powers of Steam forces
A-turning Coches into Smoakey Kettels
The Bilers seam a Cumming to the Orses
And Helps and naggs Will sune be out of Vittels
Poor Bruits I wunder How we bee to Liv
When sutch a change of Orses is our Faits
No nothink need Be sifted in a Siv
May them Blowd ingins all Blow up their Grates
And Theaves of Oslers crib the Coles and Giv
Their blackgard Hannimuls a Feed of Slaits!

ALLEGORY.

A MORAL VEHICLE.

I HAD a Gig-Horse, and I called him Pleasure,
Because on Sundays, for a little jaunt,
He was so fast and showy, quite a treasure;
Although he sometimes kicked, and shied aslant.
I had a Chaise, and christened it Enjoyment,
With yellow body, and the wheels of red,
Because ’twas only used for one employment,
Namely, to go wherever Pleasure led.
I had a wife, her nickname was Delight;
A son called Frolic, who was never still:
Alas! how often dark succeeds to bright!
Delight was thrown, and Frolic had a spill,
Enjoyment was upset and shattered quite,
And Pleasure fell a splitter on Paine’s Hill!

A SOMNAMBULIST.

“A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.”—Byron.

METHOUGHT—for Fancy is the strangest gadder
When sleep all homely Mundane ties hath riven—
Methought that I ascended Jacob’s ladder,
With heartfelt hope of getting up to Heaven:
Some bell, I knew not whence, was sounding seven
When I set foot upon that long one-pair;
And still I climbed when it had chimed eleven,
Nor yet of landing-place became aware;
Step after step in endless flight seem’d there;
But on, with steadfast hope, I struggled still,
To gain that blessed haven from all care,
Where tears are wiped, and hearts forget their ill,
When, lo! I wakened on a sadder stair—
Tramp—tramp—tramp—tramp—upon the Brixton Mill!

TO VAUXHALL.

“The English Garden.”—Mason.

THE cold transparent ham is on my fork—
It hardly rains—and hark the bell!—ding-dingle—
Away! Three thousand feet at gravel work,
Mocking a Vauxhall shower!—Married and Single
Crush—rush;—Soak’d Silks with wet white Satin mingle.
Hengler! Madame! round whom all bright sparks lurk,
Calls audibly on Mr. and Mrs. Pringle
To study the Sublime, &c.—(vide Burke)
All Noses are upturn’d!—Whish—ish—! On high
The rocket rushes—trails—just steals in sight—
Then droops and melts in bubbles of blue light—
And Darkness reigns—Then balls flare up and die—
Wheels whiz—smack crackers—serpents twist—and then
Back to the cold transparent ham again!

TO A SCOTCH GIRL,

WASHING LINEN AFTER HER COUNTRY FASHION.

WELL done and wetly, thou Fair Maid of Perth,
Thou mak’st a washing picture well deserving
The pen and pencilling of Washington Irving:
Like dripping Naiad, pearly from her birth,
Dashing about the water of the Firth,
To cleanse the calico of Mrs. Skirving,
And never from thy dance of duty swerving
As there were nothing else than dirt on earth!
Yet what is thy reward? Nay, do not start!
I do not mean to give thee a new damper,
But while thou fillest this industrious part
Of washer, wearer, mangler, presser, stamper,
Deserving better character—thou art
What Bodkin would but call—“a common tramper.”

TO A DECAYED SEAMAN.

HAIL! seventy-four cut down! Hail, Top and Lop!
Unless I’m much mistaken in my notion,
Thou wast a stirring Tar, before that hop
Became so fatal to thy locomotion;—
Now, thrown on shore, like a mere weed of ocean,
Thou readest still to men a lesson good,
To King and Country showing thy devotion,
By kneeling thus upon a stump of wood!
Still is thy spirit strong as alcohol;
Spite of that limb, begot of acorn-egg,—
Methinks,—thou Naval History in one Vol.—
A virtue shines, e’en in that timber leg,
For unlike others that desert their Poll,
Thou walkest ever with thy “Constant Peg!”

TO LORD WHARNCLIFFE, ON HIS GAME-BILL.

I’m fond of partridges, I’m fond of snipes,
I’m fond of black cocks, for they’re very good cocks—
I’m fond of wild ducks, and I’m fond of woodcocks—
And grouse that set up such strange moorish pipes.
I’m fond of pheasants with their splendid stripes—
I’m fond of hares, whether from Whig or Tory—
I’m fond of capercailzies in their glory,—
Teal, widgeons, plovers, birds in all their types:
All these are in your care, Law-giving Peer,
And when you next address your Lordly Babel,
Some clause put in your Bill, precise and clear,
With due and fit provision to enable
A man that holds all kinds of game so dear
To keep, like Crockford, a good Gaming Table.

THE TOP OF HIS PROFESSION.

JOINING IN A CATCH.

LIEUTENANT LUFF.

A COMIC BALLAD.

ALL you that are too fond of wine,
Or any other stuff,
Take warning by the dismal fate
Of one Lieutenant Luff.
A sober man he might have been,
Except in one regard,
He did not like soft water,
So he took to drinking hard!

Said he, “Let others fancy slops,
And talk in praise of Tea,
But I am no Bohemian,
So do not like Bohea.
If wine’s a poison, so is Tea,
Though in another shape;
What matter whether one is kill’d
By canister or grape!”

According to this kind of taste
Did he indulge his drouth,
And being fond of Port, he made
A port-hole of his mouth!
A single pint he might have sipp’d
And not been out of sorts,
In geologic phrase—the rock
He split upon was quarts!

To “hold the mirror up to vice”
With him was hard, alas!
The worse for wine he often was,
But not “before a glass.”
No kind and prudent friend had he
To bid him drink no more,—
The only chequers in his course
Were at a tavern door!

Full soon the sad effects of this
His frame began to show,
For that old enemy the gout
Had taken him in toe!
And join’d with this an evil came
Of quite another sort,—
For while he drank, himself, his purse
Was getting “something short.”

For want of cash he soon had pawn’d
One half that he possess’d,
And drinking show’d him duplicates
Beforehand of the rest!
So now his creditors resolved
To seize on his assets;
For why,—they found that his half-pay
Did not half-pay his debts.

But Luff contrived a novel mode
His Creditors to chouse;
For his own execution he
Put into his own house!
A pistol to the muzzle charged
He took devoid of fear;
Said he, “This barrel is my last,
So now for my last bier!”

Against his lungs he aimed the slugs,
And not against his brain,
So he blew out his lights—and none
Could blow them in again!
A Jury for a Verdict met
And gave it in these terms:—
“We find as how as certain slugs
Has sent him to the worms!”

LOVE HAS NOT EYES.

OF all the poor old Tobits a-groping in the street,
A Lover is the blindest that ever I did meet,
For he’s blind, he’s blind, he’s very blind,—
He’s as blind as any mole!

He thinks his love the fairest that ever yet was clasp’d,
Though her clay is overbaked, and it never has been rasp’d.
For he’s blind, &c.

He thinks her face an angel’s, although it’s quite a frump’s,
Like a toad a-taking physic, or a monkey in the mumps.
For he’s blind, &c.

Upon her graceful figure then how he will insist,
Though she’s all so much awry, she can only eat a twist!
For he’s blind, &c.

He’ll swear that in her dancing she cuts all others out,
Though like a Gal that’s galvanised, she throws her legs about.
For he’s blind, &c.

If he should have a letter in answer to his sighs,
He’ll put it to his lips up, instead of to his eyes.
For he’s blind, &c.

Then if he has a meeting the question for to put,
In suing for her hand he’ll be kneeling at her foot.
For he’s blind, &c.

Oh Love is like a furnace wherein a Lover lies,
And like a pig before the fire, he scorches out his eyes.
Till he’s blind, &c.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

“If the affairs of this world did not make us so sad,
’Twould be easy enough to be merry.”—Old Song.

THERE is nothing but plague in this house!
There’s the turbot is stole by the cat,
The Newfoundland has eat up the grouse,
And the haunch has been gnawed by a rat!
It’s the day of all days when I wish
That our friends should enjoy our good cheer;
Mr. Wiggins—our dinner is dished—
But I wish you a happy New Year!

Mr. Fudge has not called, but he will,
For his Rates, Church, and Highway, and Poor;
And the butcher has brought in his bill—
Twice as much as the quarter before.
Little Charles is come home with the mumps,
And Matilda with measles, I fear;
And I’ve taken two sov’reigns like dumps—
But I wish you a happy New Year!

Your poor brother is in the Gazette,
And your banker is off to New York;
Mr. Bigsby has died in your debt,
And the “Wiggins” has foundered near Cork.
Mr. Merrington’s bill is come back;
You are chosen to serve overseer;
The new wall is beginning to crack—
But I wish you a happy New Year!

The best dinner-set’s fallen to the ground;
The militia’s called out, and you’re drawn;
Not a piece of our plate can be found,
And there’s marks of men’s feet on the lawn:
Two anonymous letters have come,
That declare you shall die like a Weare;
And it may—or may not—be a hum—
But I wish you a happy New Year!

The old law-suit with Levy is lost;
You are fined for not cleansing the street;
And the water-pipe’s burst with the frost,
And the roof lets the rain in and sleet.
Your old tenant at seventy-four
Has gone off in the night with his gear,
And has taken the key of the door—
But I wish you a happy New Year!

There’s the “Sun” and the “Phœnix” to pay,
For the chimney has blazed like Old Nick;
The new gig has been jammed by a dray,
And the old horse has taken to kick.
We have hardly a bushel of small,
And now coal is extravagant dear;
Your great coat is stole out of the hall—
But I wish you a happy New Year!

The whole greenhouse is smashed by the hail,
And the plants have all died in the night;
The magnolia’s blown down by the gale,
And the chimney looks far from upright;
And—the deuce take the man from the shop,
That hung up the new glass chandelier!—
It has come, in the end, to one drop—
But I wish you a happy New Year!

There’s misfortune wherever we dodge—
It’s the same in the country and town;
There’s the porter has burned down his lodge,
While he went off to smoke at the Crown.
The fat butler makes free with your wine,
And the footman has drunk the strong beer,
And the coachman can’t walk in a line—
But I wish you a happy New Year!

I have doubts if your clerk is correct—
There are hints of a mistress at Kew,
And some day he’ll abscond, I expect;
Mr. Brown has built out your back view;
The new housemaid’s the greatest of flirts—
She has men in the house, that is clear;
And the laundress has pawned all your shirts—
But I wish you a happy New Year!

Your “Account of a Visit to Rome”
Not a critic on earth seems to laud;
And old Huggins has lately come home,
And will swear that your Claude isn’t Claude;
Your election is far from secure,
Though it’s likely to cost very dear;
You’re come out in a caricature—
But I wish you a happy New Year!

You’ve been christened an ass in the Times,
And the Chronicle calls you a fool;
And that dealer in boys, Dr. Ghrimes,
Has engaged the next house for a school;
And the playground will run by the bower
Which you took so much trouble to rear;
We shall never have one quiet hour—
But I wish you a happy New Year!

Little John will not take to his book,
He’s come home black and blue from the cane;
There’s your uncle is courting his cook,
And your mother has married again!
Jacob Jones will be tried with his wife,
And against them you’ll have to appear;
If they’re hung you’ll be wretched for life—
But I wish you a happy New Year!