Thomas Hood Quotes - Page 3

Well, something must be done for May, The time is drawing nigh-- To figure in the Catalogue, And woo the public eye. Something I must invent and paint; But oh my wit is not Like one of those kind substantives That answer Who and What?

Whilst breezy waves toss up their silvery spray.

Mother of light! how fairly dost thou go Over those hoary crests, divinely led! Art thou that huntress of the silver bow Fabled of old? Or rather dost thou tread Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below, Like the wild chamois from her Alpine snow, Where hunters never climbed--secure from dread?

The moon, the moon, so silver and cold, Her fickle temper has oft been told, Now shade--now bright and sunny-- But of all the lunar things that change, The one that shows most fickle and strange, And takes the most eccentric range, Is the moon--so called--of honey!

For man may pious texts repeat, And yet religion have no inward seat

Father of rosy day, No more thy clouds of incense rise; But waking flow'rs, At morning hours, Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies.

Experience enables me to depose to the comfort and blessing that literature can prove in seasons of sickness and sorrow.

There is not a string attuned to mirth but has its chord of melancholy.

Well for the drones of the social hive that there are bees of an industrious turn, willing, for an infinitesimal share of the honey, to undertake the labor of its fabrication.

The Autumn is old; The sere leaves are flying; He hath gather'd up gold, And now he is dying;- Old age, begin sighing!

Comfort and indolence are cronies.

Some sigh for this and that; My wishes don't go far; The world may wag at will, So I have my cigar.

Pity it is to slay the meanest thing.

My brain is dull, my sight is foul, I cannot write a verse, or read-- Then, Pallas, take away thine Owl, And let us have a lark instead.

When he is forsaken, Withered and shaken, What can an old man do but die?

Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves.

What is a modern poet's fate? / To write his thoughts upon a slate; / The critic spits on what is done, / Gives it a wipe - and all is gone.

The lily is all in white, like a saint, And so is no mate for me.

With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread.

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

The Quaker loves an ample brim, A hat that bows to no salaam; And dear the beaver is to him As if it never made a dam.

No sun, no moon, no morn, no noon, No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day, . . . . . . No road, no street, no t' other side the way, . . . . . . No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no buds.

She stood breast-high amid the corn Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, Like the sweetheart of the sun, Who many a glowing kiss had won.

The best of friends fall out, and so his teeth had done some years ago.

Gold! gold! gold! gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold!