To the Memory of Thomas Hood

Bartholomew Simmons (1804–1850)

TAKE back into thy bosom, earth,

This joyous, May-eyed morrow,

The gentlest child that ever mirth

Gave to be reared by sorrow!

’T is 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 nevermore be lighter,

In whose sweet-tongued companionship

Stream, bower, and beam grow brighter!

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

Lurked the keen jags of anguish;

The more the laurels clasped his brow

Their poison made it languish.

Seemed it that, like the nightingale

Of his own mournful singing,

The tenderer would his song prevail

While most the thorn was stinging.

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 heart’s regretting,

Around that spot admiring thought

Shall hover, unforgetting.