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

“WELL! Here I am—no Matter how it suits,
A-keeping Company with them dumb Brutes,
Old Park vos no bad Judge—confound his vig!
Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig!

“The like of Me, to come to New Sow Wales
To go a-tagging arter Vethers’ Tails
And valk in Herbage as delights the Flock,
But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock!

“To go to set this solitary Job
To Von whose Vork vos alvay in a Mob!
It’s out of all our Lines, for sure I am
Jack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb!

“I arn’t ashamed to say I sit and veep
To think of Seven Years of keepin Sheep,
The spooniest Beasts in Nater, all to Sticks,
And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks!

“If I’d fore-seed how Transports vood turn out
To only Baa! and Botanize about,
I’d quite as leaf have had the t’other Pool,
And come to Cotton as to all this Vool!

“Von only happy moment I have had
Since here I come to be a Farmer’s Cad,
And then I cotch’d a vild Beast in a Snooze,
And pick’d her Pouch of three young Kangaroos!

“Vot chance have I to go to Race or Mill?
Or show a sneaking Kindness for a Till;
And as for Vashings, on a hedge to dry,
I’d put the Natives’ Linen in my Eye!

“If this whole Lot of Mutton I could scrag,
And find a fence to turn it into Swag,
I’d give it all in Lonnon Streets to stand,
And if I had my pick, I’d say the Strand!

“But ven I goes, as maybe vonce I shall,
To my old crib to meet with Jack, and Sal,
I’ve been so gallows honest in this Place,
I shan’t not like to show my sheepish Face.

“It’s wery hard for nothing but a Box
Of Irish Blackguard to be keepin’ Flocks,
‘Mong naked Blacks, sich Savages to hus,
They’ve nayther got a Poker nor a Pus.

“But Folks may tell their Troubles till they’re sick
To dumb brute Beasts,—and so I’ll cut my Stick!
And vot’s the Use a Feller’s Eyes to pipe
Vere von can’t borrow any Gemman’s Vipe?’

HUGGINS AND DUGGINS.

A PASTORAL AFTER POPE.

TWO swains or clowns—but call them swains—
While keeping flocks on Salisbury Plains,
For all that tend on sheep as drovers,
Are turned to songsters, or to lovers,
Each of the lass he called his dear,
Began to carol loud and clear.

First Huggins sang, and Duggins then,
In the way of ancient shepherd men;
Who thus alternate hitch’d in song,
“All things by turns, and nothing long.”

Of all the girls about our place,
There’s one beats all in form and face,
Search through all Great and Little Bumpstead,
You’ll only find one Peggy Plumpstead.

To groves and streams I tell my flame,
I make the cliffs repeat her name:
When I’m inspired by gills and noggins,
The rocks re-echo Sally Hoggins!

When I am walking in the grove,
I think of Peggy as I rove.
I’d carve her name on every tree,
But I don’t know my A, B, C.

Whether I walk in hill or valley,
I think of nothing else but Sally.
I’d sing her praise, but I can sing
No song, except “God save the King.”

My Peggy does all nymphs excel,
And all confess she bears the bell,—
Where’er she goes swains flock together,
Like sheep that follow the bellwether.

Sally is tall and not too straight,—
Those very poplar shapes I hate;
But something twisted like an S,—
A crook becomes a shepherdess.

When Peggy’s dog her arms imprison,
I often wish my lot was hisn;
How often I should stand and turn,
To get a pat from hands like hern.

I tell Sall’s lambs how blest they be,
To stand about and stare at she;
But when I look, she turns and shies,
And won’t bear none but their sheep’s-eyes?

Love goes with Peggy where she goes,—
Beneath her smile the garden grows;
Potatoes spring, and cabbage starts,
’Tatoes have eyes, and cabbage hearts!

Where Sally goes it’s always spring,
Her presence brightens every thing;
The sun smiles bright, but where her grin is,
It makes brass farthings look like guineas.

For Peggy I can have no joy,
She’s sometimes kind, and sometimes coy,
And keeps me, by her wayward tricks,
As comfortless as sheep with ticks.

Sally is ripe as June or May,
And yet as cold as Christmas day;
For when she’s asked to change her lot,
Lamb’s wool,—but Sally, she wool not.

Only with Peggy and with health,
I’d never wish for state or wealth;
Talking of having health and more pence,
I’d drink her health if I had fourpence.

Oh, how that day would seem to shine,
If Sally’s banns were read with mine;
She cries, when such a wish I carry,
“Marry come up!” but will not marry.

PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT.

A SEA ECLOCUE.

The wind is fresh—if she don’t scud, it’s not the breeze’s fault!

Wind fresh, indeed, I never felt the air so full of salt!

That schooner, Bill, harn’t left the roads, with oranges and nuts!

If seas have roads, they’re very rough—I never felt such ruts!

Its neap, ye see, she’s heavy lade, and couldn’t pass the bar.

The bar! what, roads with turnpikes too? I wonder where they are!

Ho! brig ahoy! hard up! hard up! that lubber cannot steer!

Yes, yes,—hard up upon a rock! I know some danger’s near!
Lord, there’s a wave! it’s coming in! and roaring like a bull!

Nothing, Ma’am, but a little slop! go large, Bill! keep her full!

What, keep her full! what daring work! when full, she must go down!

Why, Bill, it lulls! ease off a bit—it’s coming off the town!
Steady your helm! we’ll clear the Pint! lay right for yonder pink!

Be steady—well, I hope they can! but they’ve got a pint of drink!

Bill, give that sheet another haul—she’ll fetch it up this reach.

I’m getting rather pale, I know, and they see it by that speech!
I wonder what it is, now, but—I never felt so queer!

Bill, mind your luff—why Bill, I say, she’s yawing—keep her near!

Keep near! we’re going further off; the land’s behind our backs.

Be easy, Ma’am, it’s all correct, that’s only ‘cause we tacks:
We shall have to beat about a bit,—Bill, keep her out to sea.

Beat who about? keep who at sea?—how black they look at me!

It’s veering round—I knew it would! oft with her head! stand by!

Off with her head! whose? where? what with?—an axe I seem to spy!

She can’t not keep her own, you see; we shall have to pull her in!

They’ll drown me, and take all I have! my life’s not worth a pin!

Look out you know, be ready, Bill—just when she takes the sand!

The sand—O Lord! to stop my mouth! how every thing is plann’d!

The handspike, Bill—quick, bear a hand! now Ma’am, just step ashore!

What! an’t I going to be kill’d—and welter’d in my gore?
Well, Heaven be praised! but I’ll not go a-sailing any more!

GOG AND MAGOG.

A GUILDHALL DUET.

Such loads of fish, and flesh, and fowl,
To think upon it makes me growl!

I wonder where the fools were taught,
That they should keep a giant short!
They’ll stop our growth, they’ll stop our growth;
They’ll starve us both, they’ll starve us both!

They said, a hundred years ago,
That we should dine at One;
Why, Gog, I say, our meat by this
Is rather over-done.

I do not want it done at all,
So hungry is my maw,
Give me an Alderman in chains,
And I will eat him raw!

Of starving weavers they discuss,
And yet they never think of us.
I say, are we to dine to-day;
Are we to dine to-day?

Oh dear, the pang it is to feel
So mealy-mouthed without a meal!

I’ll tell you what, they’ll stop our growth!

I’ll tell you what, they’ll starve us both!

They’ll stop our growth, they’ll starve us both!

THE SWEEP’S COMPLAINT.

Well, here’s a pretty go! here’s a Gagging Act, if ever there was a gagging!
But I’m bound the members as silenced us, in doing it had plenty of magging.
They had better send us all off, they had, to the School for the Deaf and Dumb,
To unlarn us our mother tongues, and to make signs and be regularly mum.
But they can’t undo natur—as sure as ever the morning begins to peep,
Directly I open my eyes, I can’t help calling out Sweep
As natural as the sparrows among the chimbley-pots that say Cheep!
For my own part I find my suppress’d voice very uneasy,
And comparable to nothing but having your tissue stopt when you are sneezy.
Well, it’s all up with us! tho’ I suppose we mustn’t cry all up.
Here’s a precious merry Christmas, I’m blest if I can earn either bit or sup!
If crying Sweep, of mornings, is going beyond quietness’s border,
Them as pretends to be fond of silence oughtn’t to cry hear, hear, and order, order.
I wonder Mr. Sutton, as we’ve sut-on too, don’t sympathise with us
As a Speaker what don’t speak, and that’s exactly our own cus.
God help us if we don’t not cry, how are we to pursue our callings?
I’m sure we’re not half so bad as other businesses with their bawlings.
For instance, the general postmen, that at six o’clock go about ringing,
And wake up all the babbies that their mothers have just got to sleep with singing.
Greens oughtn’t to be cried no more than blacks—to do the unpartial job,
If they bring in a Sooty Bill, they ought to have brought in a Dusty Bob.
Is a dustman’s voice more sweet than ourn, when he comes a seeking arter the cinders,
Instead of a little boy like a blackbird in spring, singing merrily under your windows?
There’s the omnibus cads as plies in Cheapside, and keeps calling out Bank and City;
Let his Worship, the Mayor, decide if our call of Sweep is not just as pretty.
I can’t see why the Jews should be let go about crying Old Close thro’ their hooky noses,
And Christian laws should be ten times more hard than the old stone laws of Moses.
Why isn’t the mouths of the muffin-men compell’d to be equally shut?
Why, because Parliament members eat muffins, but they never eat no sut.
Next year there won’t be any May-day at all, we shan’t have no heart to dance,
And Jack in the Green will go in black like mourning for our mischance;
If we live as long as May, that’s to say, through the hard winter and pinching weather,
For I don’t see how we’re to earn enough to keep body and soul together.
I only wish Mr. Wilberforce or some of them that pities the niggers,
Would take a peep down in our cellars, and look at our miserable starving figures,
A-sitting idle on our empty sacks, and all ready to eat each other,
And a brood of little ones crying for bread to a heart-breaking Father and Mother.
They haven’t a rag of clothes to mend, if their mothers had thread and needles,
But crawl naked about the cellars, poor things, like a swarm of common black beadles.
If they’d only inquired before passing the Act and taken a few such peeps,
I don’t think that any real gentleman would have set his face against sweeps.
Climbin’s an ancient respectable art, and if History’s of any vally,
Was recommended by Queen Elizabeth to the great Sir Walter Raleigh,
When he wrote on a pane of glass how I’d climb, if the way I only knew,
And she writ beneath, if your heart’s afeard, don’t venture up the flue.
As for me I was always loyal, and respected all powers that are higher,
But how can I now say God save the King, if I an’t to be a Cryer?
There’s London milk, that’s one of the cries, even on Sunday the law allows,
But ought black sweeps, that are human beasts, to be worser off than black cows?
Do we go calling about, when it’s church time, like the noisy Billingsgate vermin,
And disturb the parson with “All alive O!” in the middle of a funeral sermon?
But the fish won’t keep, not the mackarel won’t, is the cry of the Parliament elves,
Every thing, except the sweeps I think, is to be allowed to keep themselves!
Lord help us! what’s to become of us if we mustn’t cry no more?
We shan’t do for black mutes to go a standing at a death’s door.
And we shan’t do to emigrate, no not even to the Hottentot nations,
For as time wears on, our black will wear off, and then think of our situations!
And we should not do, in lieu of black-a-moor footmen, to serve ladies of quality nimbly,
For when we’re drest in our sky-blue and silver, and large frills, all
clean and neat, and white silk stockings, if they pleased to
desire us to sweep the hearth, we couldn’t resist the chimbley.

THE CARELESSE NURSE MAYD.

I SAWE a Mayd sitte on a Bank,
Beguiled by Wooer fayne and fond;
And whiles His flatterynge Vowes She drank,
Her Nurselynge slipt within a Pond!

All Even Tide they Talkde and Kist,
For She was fayre and He was Kinde;
The Sunne went down before She wist
Another Sonne had sett behinde!

With angrie Hands and frownynge Browe,
That deemed Her owne the Urchine’s Sinne,
She pluckt Him out, but he was nowe
Past being whipt for fallynge in.

She then begins to wayle the Ladde
With Shrikes that Echo answerde round—
O! foolishe Mayd to be soe sadde
The Momente that her Care was drownd!

JARVIS AND MRS. COPE.

A DECIDEDLY SERIOUS BALLAD.

And, affidavit-like, he clench’d
Her shilling with an oath.

Said she, “I’ll have you fined for this,
And soon it shall be done,
I’ll have you up at Worship Street,
You wicked one, naught one!”

And sure enough at Worship Street
That Friday week they stood;
She said bad language he had used,
And thus she “made it good.”

“He said two shilling was his fare,
And wouldn’t take no less—
I said one shilling was enough,—
And he said C—U—S!

“And when I raised my eyes at that,
He swore again at them,
I said he was a wicked man,
And he said D—A—M.”

Now Jarvy’s turn was come to speak,
So he stroked down his hair,
“All what she says is false—cause why?
I’ll swear I never swear!

“There’s old Joe Hatch, the waterman,
Can tell you what I am;
I’m one of seven children, all
Brought up without a Dam!

“He’ll say from two year old and less
Since ever I were nust,
If ever I said C—U—S,
I wish I may be cust!

“At Sion Cottage I takes up,
And raining all the while,
To go to New Jerusalem,
A wery long two mile.

“Well, when I axes for my fare,
She rows me in the street,
And uses words as is not fit
For coachmen to repeat!

“Says she,—I know where you will go,
You sinner! I know well,—
Your worship, it’s the P—I—T
Of E and double L;”

Now here his worship stopp’d the case—
Said he—I’ll fine you both!
And of the two—why Mrs. Cope’s
I think the biggest oath?”

A LAY OF REAL LIFE.

WHO ruined me ere I was born,
Sold every acre, grass or corn,
And left the next heir all forlorn?
My Grandfather.

Who said my mother was no nurse,
And physicked me and made me worse,
Till infancy became a curse?
My Grandfather.

Who left me in my seventh year,
A comfort to my mother dear,
And Mr. Pope, the overseer?
My Father.

Who let me starve, to buy her gin,
Till all my bones came through my skin,
Then called me “ugly little sin?”
My Mother.

Who said my mother was a Turk,
And took me home—and made me work,
But managed half my meals to shirk?
My Aunt.

Who “of all earthly things” would boast,
“He hated other’s brats the most,”
And therefore made me feel my post?
My Uncle.

Who got in scrapes, an endless score,
And always laid them at my door,
Till many a bitter bang I bore?
My Cousin.

Who took me home when mother died,
Again with father to reside,
Black shoes, clean knives, run far and wide?
My Stepmother.

Who marred my stealthy urchin joys,
And when I played cried “What a noise!—
Girls always hector over boys—
My Sister.

Who used to share in what was mine,
Or took it all, did he incline,
‘Cause I was eight, and he was nine?
My Brother.

Who stroked my head, and said “Good lad,”
And gave me sixpence, “all he had;”
But at the stall the coin was bad?
My Godfather.

Who, gratis, shared my social glass,
But when misfortune came to pass,
Referr’d me to the pump? Alas!
My Friend.

Through all this weary world, in brief,
Who ever sympathised with grief,
Or shared my joy—my sole relief?
Myself.

THE FORLORN SHEPHERD’S COMPLAINT.

AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, FROM SYDNEY.