To the Memory of Thomas Hood

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.