The Comic Poems of Thomas Hood A New and Complete Edition

Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The...

Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg-- Her Pedigree 269 Her Birth 271 Her Christening 276 Her Childhood 280 Her Education 281 Her Accident 285 Her Precious Leg 289 Her Fame 292...

With bowls of sangaree and toddy come! Bring lemons, sugar, old Madeira, limes, Whole tanks and water-barrels full of rum, To toast the whitest date of modern times-- From this...

’Twas awful to hear, as she went along, The wicked words of the popular song; Or supposing she listen’d--as gossips will-- At a door ajar, or a window agape, To catch the sounds...

One day, it was before a civic dinner, Two London Aldermen, no matter which, Cordwainer, Girdler, Patten-maker, Skinner-- But both were florid, corpulent, and rich, And both rig...

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...

It’s very hard!--and so it is, To live in such a row, And witness this that every Miss But me, has got a Beau. For Love goes calling up and down, But here he seems to shun; I’m...

Our village, that’s to say not Miss Mitford’s village, but our village of Bullock Smithy, Is come into by an avenue of trees, three oak pollards, two elders, and a withy; And in...

Of all the modern schemes of Man, That time has brought to bear, A plague upon the wicked plan That parts the wedded pair! My female friends they all agree They hardly know thei...

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 mak...

I came to town a happy man: I need not now dissemble Why I return so sad at heart-- It’s all through Fanny Kemble: Oh! when she threw her flowers away, What urged the tragic slu...

And what might be their aim? To rescue Afric’s sable sons from fetters-- To save their bodies from the burning shame Of branding with hot letters-- Their shoulders from the cowh...

How fare thy Patients? are they dead or living, Or, well as can expected be, with such A style of practice, liberally giving “A sum of more to that which had too much?” Dost tho...

A Queen you are, raining in your own right, Yet oh! how little flatter’d by report! Even by those that seek the Court, Pelted with every term of spleen and spite. Folks rail and...

Nay, then, let Sleeping Beauty sleep With ancient “_Dozey_” to the dregs,-- Let Mother Goose wear mourning deep, And put a hatchment o’er her eggs! Let Farley weep--for Magic’s...

I may as well, while I’m inclined, Just go through all the faults I find: O Lud! then, with a bitter air, say June, Could’st thou not find a better tune To sound with trumpets,...

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 birt...

’Tis very hard when men forsake This melancholy world, and make A bed of turf, they cannot take A quiet doze, But certain rogues will come and break Their “bone” repose.

Twelve angry doctors wrangled so, That twelve had struck an hour ago, Before they had an eye to throw On the departed; Twelve heads turn’d round at once, and lo! Twelve doctors...

What more? She learnt to sing, and dance, To sit on a horse, although he should prance, And to speak a French not spoken in France Any more than at Babel’s building-- And she pa...

And then of the Leg she went in quest; And led it where the light was best; And made it lay itself up to rest In postures for painter’s studies. It cost more tricks and trouble...

Such were the future man and wife! Whose bale or bliss to the end of life A few short words were to settle-- “Wilt thou have this woman?” “I will”--and then, “Wilt thou have thi...

’Tis a stern and startling thing to think How often mortality stands on the brink Of its grave without any misgiving; And yet in this slippery world of strife, In the stir of hu...

Heaven mend us all!--but, within my mind, I had kill’d him then and there; To see him lording so braggart-like That was born to his beggar’s fare; And how he had stol’n the roya...

Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle, Walk’d out at last, and turn’d into the Strand, To the left hand, Conning some portions of the previous twaddle, And striding with...

Still east by south the little boat, With tawny sail, kept beating: Now out of sight, between two waves, Now o’er th’ horizon fleeting: Like greedy swine that feed on mast,-- Th...

What little urchin with a rag Hath never made a little flag, (Our plate will show the manner,) And wooed each tiny neighbour still, Tommy or Harry, Dick or Will, To come beneath...

And the rain drizzles down very fast, While my dinner-time sounds from a far bell,-- So, wet to the skin, I’ll e’en back to my Inn, Where at least I am sure of a _Bar-bell_!

Lo, then, the poor laundress, all wretched she stands, Instead of a counterpane, wringing her hands! All haggard and pinch’d, going down in life’s vale, With no faggot for burni...

Meanwhile, from its height Stooping downward in flight, The Phenomenon came more distinctly in sight: Still bigger and bigger, And strike me a nigger Unfreed, if there was not a...

So, liberty or not,-- Good lodgers are too scarce to let them off in A suicidal coffin-- The dame ran up as fast as she could trot; “Appearance,--fiddlesticks!” should not deter...

They didn’t pinch and starve us, as here they do at York, For every boy was ask’d, sir, to bring a knife and fork. And then I had a chum too, to fag and all of that, I made him...

In one of those small, quiet streets, Where business retreats, To shun the daily bustle and the noise The shoppy Strand enjoys, But Law, Joint-Companies, and Life Assurance Find...

Glowing and ruddy The light streams in upon their deep brown study, And settles on our bald logician’s skull: But still his meditative eye looks dull And muddy, For he is gazing...