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. FOOTNOTES:

[32] In his beautiful Ode to Melancholy; originally published in Blackwood's Magazine.