Thomas Hood Quotes

Oh bed! oh bed! delicious bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head.

'Twas in the prime of summer-time
An evening calm and cool,
And four-and-twenty happy boys
Came bounding out of school:
There were some that ran and some that leapt,
Like troutlets in a pool.

Straight down the Crooked Lane,
And all round the Square.

And there is ev'n a happiness
That makes the heart afraid!

There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,—
In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea,
Or in the wide desert where no life is found.

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence.

But evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart.

My tears must stop, for every drop Hinders needle and thread.

And lo! the universal air
Seemed lit with ghastly flame;
Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes
Were looking down in blame.

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the “Song of the Shirt.”

Pity it is to slay the meanest thing.

For my part, getting up seems not so easy
By half as lying.

How widely its agencies vary,—
To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,—
As even its minted coins express,
Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now of a Bloody Mary.

No sun—no moon—no morn—no noon,
No dawn—no dusk—no proper time of day,
No warmth—no cheerfulness—no healthful ease,
No road, no street, no t' other side the way,
No comfortable feel in any member—
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!

His death which happened in his berth,
At forty-odd befell:
They went and told the sexton, and
The sexton tolled the bell.