's,
Whom Southey sings,
Mounted on Pegasus--would he were thrown!
He'll wear that ancient hackney to the bone,
Like a mere clothes-horse airing royal things!
Ah well-a-day! the ancients did not use
Their steeds so cruelly!--let it debar men
From wanton rowelling and whip's abuse--
Look at the ancients' _Muse_!
Look at their _Carmen_!

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