Thomas Hood
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he man who cloaked his bitterness withinThis winding-sheet of puns and pleasantries,God never gave to look with common eyesUpon a world of anguish and of sin:His brother was the branded man of Lynn;And there are woven with his jollitiesThe nameless and eternal tragediesThat render hope and hopelessness akin. We laugh, and crown him; but anon we feelA still chord sorrow-swept, -- a weird unrest;And thin dim shadows home to midnight steal,As if the very ghost of mirth were dead --As if the joys of time to dreams had fled,Or sailed away with Ines to the West.
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