V.

    O, Martin I how thine eyes—­
  That one would think had put aside its lashes,—­
        That can’t bear gashes
Thro’ any horse’s side, must ache to spy
That horrid window fronting Fetter-lane,—­
For there’s a nag the crows have pick’d for victual,
  Or some man painted in a bloody vein—­
    Gods! is there no Horse-spital! 
That such raw shows must sicken the humane! 
      Sure Mr. Whittle
      Loves thee but little,
To let that poor horse linger in his pane!

VI.

  O build a Brookes’s Theatre for horses! 
O wipe away the national reproach—­
  And find a decent Vulture for their corses! 
        And in thy funeral track
Four sorry steeds shall follow in each coach! 
  Steeds that confess “the luxury of wo!”
True mourning steeds, in no extempore black,
        And many a wretched hack
Shall sorrow for thee,—­sore with kick and blow
And bloody gash—­it is the Indian knack—­
(Save that the savage is his own tormentor)—­
Banting shall weep too in his sable scarf—­
The biped woe the quadruped shall enter,
  And Man and Horse go half and half,
As if their griefs met in a common Centaur!

ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN.[23]

   “O breathe not his name!”—­Moore.

[Footnote 23:  After nearly eighty years it is almost pardonable to remind the reader that in the earlier days of the Waverley Novels their author was much talked of by the above title.  The variety of Hood’s reading, and his resource in simile, are very noticeable in this Ode.  The likening of Dominie Sampson to Lamb’s friend, George Dyer and the comparison of Mause Headrigg to Rae Wilson on his travels, are admirable examples.]

I.

      Thou Great Unknown! 
I do not mean Eternity, nor Death,
      That vast incog! 
For I suppose thou hast a living breath,
Howbeit we know not from whose lungs ’tis blown,
      Thou man of fog! 
Parent of many children—­child of none! 
      Nobody’s son! 
Nobody’s daughter—­but a parent still! 
Still but an ostrich parent of a batch
Of orphan eggs,—­left to the world to hatch
      Superlative Nil! 
A vox and nothing more,—­yet not Vauxhall;
A head in papers, yet without a curl! 
      Not the Invisible Girl! 
No hand—­but a handwriting on a wall—­
      A popular nonentity,
Still call’d the same,—­without identity! 
      A lark, heard out of sight,—­
A nothing shin’d upon,—­invisibly bright,
      “Dark with excess of light!”
Constable’s literary John-a-nokes—­
The real Scottish wizard—­and not which,
      Nobody—­in a niche;
      Every one’s hoax! 
      Maybe Sir Walter Scott—­
        Perhaps not! 
Why dost thou so conceal and puzzle curious folks?