Though Beauty hasn’t formed your feature,
  It saves you p’rhaps from being vain,
And many a poor unhappy creature
  May wish that she was half as plain.

Your virtues would not rise an inch,
  Although your shape was two foot taller,
And wisely you let others pinch
  Great waists and feet to make them smaller.

You never try to spare your hands
  From getting red by household duty,
But doing all that it commands,
  Their coarseness is a moral beauty.

Let Susan flourish her fair arms,
  And at your old legs sneer and scoff,
But let her laugh, for you have charms
  That nobody knows nothing of.

LAMENT FOR THE DECLINE OF CHIVALRY.[41]

[Footnote 41:  These verses form a good specimen of Hood’s capabilities for writing to order.  They first appeared in the Bijou for 1828, accompanying a vignette by Thomas Stothard of two knights, mounted, and in complete armor, engaged in deadly conflict.  This was doubtless (after the then custom of Annuals) placed in Hood’s hands for him to supply the appropriate letterpress.]

Well hast thou cried, departed Burke,
All chivalrous romantic work
    Is ended now and past!—­
That iron age—­which some have thought
Of metal rather overwrought—­
    Is now all overcast!

Ay! where are those heroic knights
Of old—­those armadillo wights
    Who wore the plated vest?—­
Great Charlemagne and all his peers
Are cold—­enjoying with their spears
    An everlasting rest!

The bold King Arthur sleepeth sound;
So sleep his knights who gave that Round
    Old Table such eclat! 
Oh, Time has pluck’d the plumy brow! 
And none engage at tourneys now
    But those that go to law!

Grim John o’ Gaunt is quite gone by,
And Guy is nothing but a Guy,
    Orlando lies forlorn!—­
Bold Sidney, and his kidney—­nay,
Those “early champions”—­what are they
    But “Knights without a morn”?

No Percy branch now perseveres,
Like those of old, in breaking spears—­
    The name is now a lie!—­
Surgeons, alone, by any chance,
Are all that ever couch a lance
    To couch a body’s eye!

Alas for Lion-Hearted Dick,
That cut the Moslems to the quick,
    His weapon lies in peace: 
Oh, it would warm them in a trice,
If they could only have a spice
    Of his old mace in Greece!

The famed Rinaldo lies a-cold,
And Tancred too, and Godfrey bold,
    That scaled the holy wall! 
No Saracen meets Paladin,
We hear of no great Saladin,
    But only grow the small!

Our Cressys, too, have dwindled since
To penny things—­at our Black Prince[42]
    Historic pens would scoff: 
The only one we moderns had
Was nothing but a Sandwich lad,
    And measles took him off!