Poem by Thomas Hood

To a Cold Beauty

Lady, wouldst thou heiress be
  To Winters cold and cruel part?
When he sets the rivers free,
  Thou dost still lock up thy heart;--
Thou that shouldst outlast the snow,
But in the whiteness of thy brow?

Scorn and cold neglect are made
  For winter gloom and winter wind,
But thou wilt wrong the summer air,
  Breathing it to words unkind,--
Breath which only should belong
To love, to sunlight, and to song!

When the little buds unclose.
  Red, and white, and pied, and blue,
And that virgin flow'r, the rose,
  Opes her heart to hold the dew,
Wilt thou lock thy bosom up
With no jewel in its cup?

Let not cold December sit
  Thus in Love's peculiar throne:
Brooklets are not prison'd now,
  But crystal frosts are all agone,
And that which hangs upon the spray,
It is no snow, but flow'r of May!

1. Written in Keats' “Endymion”
2. The Two Peacocks of Bedfont
3. Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy
4. Song (The stars are with the voyager)
5. Stanzas (Is there a bitter pang for love removed)

Print

1595 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version