FROM BOOK III. MOONLIGHT. Eterne Apollo! that thy sister1 fair When thy gold breath is misting in the west, And there she sits most meek and most alone; As if thine eye, high Poet! was not bent O Moon! the oldest shades 'mong oldest trees THOMAS HOOD. (1798-1845.) WHO has not laughed with laughter-loving Thomas Hood? But wit was not his best quality; he possessed sterling benevolence and genial philan thropy. He could twist our language into every comical shape of pun and quibble; but he could also move the best feelings of our nature by genuine tenderness and compassion. The flesh creeps as his reader follows him step by step over his "Haunted House," or through the windings of remorse in the mind of Eugene Aram. "The Elm Tree," though fanciful in its construction, is full of pregnant feeling; and numbers of his smaller pieces 1 See note 3, p. 25. are stamped with the purest characters of poetry; all must remember the excitement produced by his "Song of the Shirt." Mr Hood was the son of a bookseller in London; he abandoned his original profession of an engraver when he witnessed the popularity of his sportive muse. The last hours of the poet's lingering illness were cheered by the knowledge of the Queen's generous intention to pension his widow. THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM.1 'Twas in the prime of summer time, There were some that ran, and some that leapt, Away they sped with gamesome minds, And souls untouched by sin, To a level mead they came, and there Like sportive deer they cours'd about, But the Usher sat remote from all, His hat was off, his vest apart, To catch heaven's blessed breeze; For a burning thought was in his brow, And his bosom ill at ease: So he lean'd his head on his hands, and read The book between his knees! Leaf after leaf he turn'd it o'er, Nor ever glanc'd aside, 1 Eugene Aram, a schoolmaster, was executed at York in 1759, for the murder of Daniel Clarke near Knaresborough. Aram was a man of extraordinary intellectual acquirements 'see Smollet's England, anno 1759); his defence, which he conducted himself, displays singular ingenuity, resource, and command of expression. The motive of the murder of his miserable associate was alleged to be the procuring of money to contribute to his education. Admiral Burney (the brother of the authoress of "Evelina," &c.) " used to tell of school-days under the tutelage of Eugene Aram; how he remembered the gentle usher pacing the play-ground, arm-in-arm with some one of the elder boys, and seeking relief from the unsuspected burden of his conscience by talking of strange murders; and how he (the admiral), a child, had shuddered at the handcuffs on his teacher's hands, when taken away in a post chaise to prison."-Talfourd's Final Memoirs of Charles Lamb. One of Sir E. B. Lytton's novels is founded on the story of this singular criminal. See also Miller's First Impressions of England and its People, p. 29. 476 HOOD. For the peace of his soul he read that book Much study had made him very lean, At last he shut the ponderous tome, "Oh, God! could I so close my mind, Then leaping on his feet upright, Now up the mead, then down the mead, And, lo he saw a little boy That pored upon a book! "My gentle lad, what is't you read- Or is it some historic page, Of kings and crowns unstable ?" The Usher took six hasty strides, And, long since then, of bloody men, Of lonely folk cut off unseen, And how the sprites of injured men And unknown facts of guilty acts He told how murderers walk the earth With crimson clouds before their eyes, And flames about their brain: For blood has left upon their souls "And well," quoth he, "I know for truth, Their pangs must be extreme,— Woe, woe, unutterable woe, Who spill life's sacred stream! For why? Methought, last night, I wronght A murder, in a dream! "One that had never done me wrong, A feeble man and old; I led him to a lonely field, The moon shone clear and cold: "Two sudden blows with a rugged stick, "Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone, And yet I feared him all the more, There was a manhood in his look "And lo! the universal air Seem'd lit with ghastly flame;- "Oh God! it made me quake to see 66 My head was like an ardent coal, My wretched, wretched soul, I knew A dozen times I groan'd; the dead "And now, from forth the frowning sky, "I took the dreary body up, "Down went the corse with a hollow plunge, And vanish'd in the pool; Anon I cleans'd my bloody hands, And wash'd my forehead cool, And sat among the urchins young That evening in the School. "Oh, Heaven! to think of their white souls, And mine so black and grim ! I could not share in childish prayer, Nor join in evening hymn: Like a Devil of the Pit I seem'd 'Mid holy Cherubim ! "And peace went with them, one and all, But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain And drew my midnight curtains round, With fingers bloody-red! "All night I lay in agony, In anguish dark and deep: "All night I lay in agony |