Part 4 — DOMESTIC POEMS. THOMAS HOOD. I.

GOOD-NIGHT.

The sun was slumbering in the west, my daily labors past; On Anna's soft and gentle breast my head reclined at last; The darkness closed around, so dear to fond congenial souls, And thus she murmured in my ear, "My love, we're out of coals.

"That Mister Bond has called again, insisting on his rent; And all the Todds are coming up to see us, out of Kent; I quite forgot to tell you John has had a tipsy fall;— I'm sure there's something going on with that vile Mary Hall!

"Miss Bell has bought the sweetest milk, and I have bought the rest— Of course, if we go out of town, Southend will be the best. I really think the Jones's house would be the thing for us; I think I told you Mrs. Pope had parted with her NUS—

"Cook, by the way, came up to-day, to bid me suit myself— And, what'd ye think? the rats have gnawed the victuals on the shelf. And, Lord! there's such a letter come, inviting you to fight! Of course you, don't intend to go—God bless you, dear, goodnight!"

II.

A PARENTAL ODE TO MY SON, AGED THREE YEARS AND FIVE MONTHS.

Thou happy, happy elf! (But stop—first let me kiss away that tear)— Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite! With spirits feather-light, Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin— (Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin!) Thou little tricksy Puck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents—(Drat the boy! There goes my ink!)

Thou cherub—but of earth; Fit playfellow for Fays, by moonlight pale, In harmless sport and mirth, (That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail!) Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey From every blossom in the world that blows, Singing in youth's elysium ever sunny, (Another tumb!—that's his precious nose!)

Thy father's pride and hope! (He'll break the mirror with that skipping-rope!) With pure heart newly stamped from Nature's mint— (Where did he learn that squint?) Thou young domestic dove! (He'll have that jug off, with another shove!) Dear nursling of the Hymeneal nest! (Are those torn clothes his best?) Little epitome of man! (He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life— (He's got a knife!)

Thou enviable being! No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, Play on, play on, My elfin John! Toss the light ball—bestride the stick— (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) With fancies, buoyant as the thistle-down, Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, With many a lamb-like frisk, (He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!)

Thou pretty opening rose! (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) Balmy and breathing music like the South, (He really brings my heart into my mouth!)Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star— (I wish that window had an iron bar!) Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove— (I'll tell you what, my love, I can not write, unless he's sent above!)

III.

A SERENADE.

"LULLABY, O, lullaby!" Thus I heard a father cry, "Lullaby, O, lullaby! The brat will never shut an eye; Hither come, some power divine! Close his lids, or open mine!"

"Lullaby, O, lullaby! What the devil makes him cry? Lullaby, O, lullaby! Still he stares—I wonder why, Why are not the sons of earth Blind, like puppies, from their birth?"

"Lullaby, O, lullaby!" Thus I heard the father cry; "Lullaby, O, lullaby! Mary, you must come and try!— Hush, O, hush, for mercy's sake— The more I sing, the more you wake!"

"Lullaby, O, lullaby! Fie, you little creature, fie! Lullaby, O, lullaby! Is no poppy-syrup nigh? Give him some, or give him all, I am nodding to his fall!"

"Lullaby, O, lullaby! Two such nights and I shall die! Lullaby, O, lullaby! He'll be bruised, and so shall I— How can I from bed-posts keep, When I'm walking in my sleep!"

"Lullaby, O, lullaby! Sleep his very looks deny— Lullaby, O, lullaby! Nature soon will stupefy— My nerves relax—my eyes grow dim— Who's that fallen—me or him?"

ODE TO PERRY, THE INVENTOR OF THE STEEL PEN. THOMAS HOOD

"In this good work, Penn appears the greatest, usefullest of God's instruments. Firm and unbending when the exigency requires it—soft and yielding when rigid inflexibility is not a desideratum—fluent and flowing, at need, for eloquent rapidity—slow and retentive in cases of deliberation—never spluttering or by amplification going wide of the mark—never splitting, if it can be helped, with any one, but ready to wear itself out rather in their service—all things as it were with all men—ready to embrace the hand of Jew, Christian, or Mohammedan—heavy with the German, light with the Italian, oblique with the English, upright with the Roman, backward in coming forward with the Hebrew—in short, for flexibility, amiability, constitutional durability, general ability, and universal utility, It would be hard to find a parallel to the great Penn." —Perry's CHARACTERISATION OF A SETTLER.

O! Patent Pen-inventing Perrian Perry! Friend of the goose and gander, That now unplucked of their quill-feathers wander, Cackling, and gabbling, dabbling, making merry, About the happy fen, Untroubled for one penny-worth of pen, For which they chant thy praise all Britain through, From Goose-Green unto Gander-Cleugh!—

Friend to all Author-kind— Whether of Poet or of Proser— Thou art composer unto the composer Of pens—yea, patent vehicles for Mind To carry it on jaunts, or more extensive PERRYgrinations through the realms of thought; Each plying from the Comic to the Pensive, An Omnibus of intellectual sort;

Modern improvements in their course we feel, And while to iron railroads heavy wares, Dry goods and human bodies, pay their fares, Mind flies on steel To Penrith, Penrhyn, even to Penzance; Nay, penetrates, perchance, To Pennsylvania, or, without rash vaunts, To where the Penguin haunts!

In times bygone, when each man cut his quill, With little Perryan skill, What horrid, awkward, bungling tools of trade Appeared the writing implements home-made! What Pens were sliced, hewed, hacked, and haggled out, Slit or unslit, with many a various snout, Aquiline, Roman, crooked, square, and snubby. Stumpy and stubby; Some capable of ladye-billets neat, Some only fit for ledger-keeping clerk, And some to grub down Peter Stubbs his mark, Or smudge through some illegible receipt; Others in florid caligraphic plans, Equal to ships, and wiggy heads, and swans!

To try in any common inkstands, then, With all their miscellaneous stocks, To find a decent pen, Was like a dip into a lucky box: You drew—and got one very curly, And split like endive in some hurly-burly; The next unslit, and square at end, a spade, The third, incipient pop-gun, not yet made; The fourth a broom; the fifth of no avail, Turned upward, like a rabbit's tail; And last, not least, by way of a relief, A stump that Master Richard, James or John, Had tried his candle-cookery upon, Making "roast-beef!"

Not so thy Perryan Pens! True to their M's and N's, They do not with a whizzing zig-zag split, Straddle, turn up their noses, sulk, and spit, Or drop large dots, Hugh full-stop blots, Where even semicolons were unfit.

They will not frizzle up, or, broom-like, drudge In sable sludge— Nay, bought at proper "Patent Perryan" shops, They write good grammar, sense, and mind their stops Compose both prose and verse, the sad and merry— For when the editor, whose pains compile The grown-up Annual, or the Juvenile, Vaunteth his articles, not women's, men's, But lays "by the most celebrated Pens," What means he but thy Patent Pens, my Perry?

Pleasant they are to feel! So firm! so flexible! composed of steel So finely tempered—fit for tenderest Miss To give her passion breath, Or kings to sign the warrant stern of death— But their supremest merit still is this, Write with them all your days, Tragedy, Comedy, all kinds of plays— (No dramatist should ever be without 'em)— And, just conceive the bliss— There is so little of the goose about 'em, One's safe from any hiss! Ah! who can paint that first great awful night, Big with a blessing or a blight, When the poor dramatist, all fume and fret, Fuss, fidget, fancy, fever, funking, fright, Ferment, fault-fearing, faintness—more f's yet: Flushed, frigid, flurried, flinching, fitful, flat, Add famished, fuddled, and fatigued, to that, Funeral, fate-foreboding—sits in doubt, Or rather doubt with hope, a wretched marriage To see his play upon the stage come out; No stage to him! it is Thalia's carriage, And he is sitting on the spikes behind it, Striving to look as if he didn't mind it!

Witness how Beazley vents upon his hat His nervousness, meanwhile his fate is dealt He kneads, molds, pummels it, and sits it flat, Squeezes and twists it up, until the felt, That went a beaver in, comes out a rat!

Miss Mitford had mis-givings, and in fright, Upon Rienzi's night, Gnawed up one long kid glove, and all her bag, Quite to a rag. Knowles has confessed he trembled as for life, Afraid of his own "Wife;" Poole told me that he felt a monstrous pail Of water backing him, all down his spine— "The ice-brook's temper"—pleasant to the chine! For fear that Simpson and his Co. should fail. Did Lord Glengall not frame a mental prayer, Wishing devoutly he was Lord knows where? Nay, did not Jerrold, in enormous drouth, While doubtful of Nell Gwynne's eventful luck, Squeeze out and suck More oranges with his one fevered mouth Than Nelly had to hawk from north to south? Yea, Buckstone, changing color like a mullet, Refused, on an occasion, once, twice, thrice, From his best friend, an ice, Lest it should hiss in his own red-hot gullet. Doth punning Peake not sit upon the points Of his own jokes, and shake in all his joints, During their trial? 'Tis past denial. And does not Pocock, feeling, like a peacock, All eyes upon him, turn to very meacock? And does not Planche, tremulous and blank, Meanwhile his personages tread the boards, Seem goaded by sharp swords, And called upon himself to "walk the plank?" As for the Dances, Charles and George to boot, What have they more Of ease and rest, for sole of either foot, Than bear that capers on a hotted floor!

Thus pending—does not Matthews, at sad shift For voice, croak like a frog in waters fenny?— Serle seem upon the surly seas adrift?— And Kenny think he's going to Kilkenny?— Haynes Bayly feel Old ditto, with the note Of Cotton in his ear, a mortal grapple About his arms, and Adam's apple Big as a fine Dutch codling in his throat? Did Rodwell, on his chimney-piece, desire Or not to take a jump into the fire? Did Wade feel as composed as music can? And was not Bernard his own Nervous Man? Lastly, don't Farley, a bewildered elf, Quake at the Pantomime he loves to cater, And ere its changes ring transform himself? A frightful mug of human delf? A spirit-bottle—empty of "the cratur"? A leaden-platter ready for the shelf? A thunderstruck dumb-waiter?

To clench the fact, Myself, once guilty of one small rash act, Committed at the Surrey, Quite in a hurry, Felt all this flurry, Corporal worry, And spiritual scurry, Dram-devil—attic curry! All going well, From prompter's bell, Until befell A hissing at some dull imperfect dunce— There's no denying I felt in all four elements at once! My head was swimming, while my arms were flying! My legs for running—all the rest was frying!

Thrice welcome, then, for this peculiar use, Thy pens so innocent of goose! For this shall dramatists, when they make merry, Discarding port and sherry, Drink—"Perry!" Perry, whose fame, pennated, is let loose To distant lands, Perry, admitted on all hands, Text, running, German, Roman, For Patent Perryans approached by no man! And when, ah me! far distant be the hour! Pluto shall call thee to his gloomy bower, Many shall be thy pensive mourners, many! And Penury itself shall club its penny To raise thy monument in lofty place, Higher than York's or any son of War; While time all meaner effigies shall bury, On due pentagonal base Shall stand the Parian, Perryan, periwigged Perry, Perched on the proudest peak of Penman Mawr!