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.