STANZAS TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS HOOD.
By B. Simmons.
I.
Take back into thy bosom, Earth,
This joyous, May-eyed morrow,
The gentlest child that ever Mirth
Gave to be rear'd by Sorrow.
'Tis hard—while rays half green, half gold,
Through vernal bowers are burning,
And streams their diamond-mirrors hold
To Summer's face returning—
To say, We're thankful that His sleep
Shall never more be lighter,
In whose sweet-tongued companionship
Stream, bower, and beam grew brighter!
II.
But all the more intensely true
His soul gave out each feature
Of elemental Love—each hue
And grace of golden Nature,
The deeper still beneath it all
Lurk'd the keen jags of Anguish;
The more the laurels clasp'd his brow,
Their poison made it languish.
Seem'd it that like the Nightingale
Of his own mournful singing[32],
The tenderer would his song prevail
While most the thorn was stinging.
III.
So never to the Desert-worn
Did fount bring freshness deeper,
Than that his placid rest this morn
Has brought the shrouded sleeper.
That rest may lap his weary head
Where charnels choke the city,
Or where, mid woodlands, by his bed
The wren shall wake its ditty:
But near or far, while evening's star
Is dear to hearts regretting,
Around that spot admiring Thought
Shall hover unforgetting.
IV.
And if this sentient, seething world
Is, after all ideal,
Or in the Immaterial furl'd
Alone resides the Real,
Freed One! there's wail for thee this hour
Through thy loved Elves' dominions[33];
Hush'd is each tiny trumpet-flower,
And droopeth Ariel's pinions;
Even Puck, dejected, leaves his swing[34],
To plan, with fond endeavour,
What pretty buds and dews shall keep
Thy pillow bright for ever.
V.
And higher, if less happy, tribes—
The race of earthly Childhood,
Shall miss thy Whims of frolic wit,
That in the summer wild-wood,
Or by the Christmas hearth, were hail'd
And hoarded as a treasure
Of undecaying merriment
And ever-changing pleasure.
Things from thy lavish humour flung,
Profuse as scents are flying
This kindling morn, when blooms are born
As fast as blooms are dying.
VI.
Sublimer Art own'd thy control,
The minstrel's mightiest magic,
With sadness to subdue the soul,
Or thrill it with the Tragic.
How, listening Aram's fearful dream,
We see beneath the willow,
That dreadful Thing,[35] or watch him steal,
Guilt-lighted, to his pillow.[36]
Now with thee roaming ancient groves,
We watch the woodman felling
The funeral Elm, while through its boughs
The ghostly wind comes knelling.[37]
VII.
Dead Worshipper of Dian's face,
In solitary places
Shalt thou no more steal, as of yore,
To meet her white embraces?[38]
Is there no purple in the rose
Henceforward to thy senses?
For thee has dawn, and daylight's close
Lost their sweet influences?
No!—by the mental might untamed
Thou took'st to Death's dark portal,
The joy of the wide universe
Is now to thee immortal!
VIII.
How fierce contrasts the city's roar
With thy new-conquer'd Quiet!
This stunning hell of wheels that pour
With princes to their riot,—
Loud clash the crowds—the very clouds
With thunder-noise are shaken,
While pale, and mute, and cold, afar
Thou liest, men-forsaken.
Hot Life reeks on, nor recks that One
—The playful, human-hearted—
Who lent its clay less earthiness
Is just from earth departed.