Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ODE TO J. S. BUCKINGHAM, M.P.; ON REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON DRUNKEDNESS, by THOMAS HOOD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ODE TO J. S. BUCKINGHAM, M.P.; ON REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON DRUNKEDNESS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, mr. Buckingham, if I may take
Last Line: Are not so much more temperate than others.
Subject(s): Alcoholism & Alcoholics; Ireland; Temperance; Drunkards; Alcohol Abuse; Irish; Prohibition


OH, Mr. Buckingham, if I may take
The liberty with you and your Committee,
Some observations I intend to make,
I hope will prove both pertinent and pretty.
On Drunkenness you've held a special court,
But is consistency, I ask, your forte,
When after (I must say) much Temperance swaggering
You issue a Report,
That's staggering!

Of course you labour'd without drop or sup,
Yet certain parts of that Report to read,
Some men might think indeed,
A corkscrew, not a pen, had drawn it up.
For instance, was it quite a sober plan
On such a theme as drunkenness to trouble
A poor old man,
Who could not e'en see single, much less double?
Blind some six years,
As it appears,
He gives in evidence, and you receive it,
A flaming picture of a flaming palace
Where gin-admirers sipped the chalice
And then (the banter is not bad),
Thinks fit to add,
You really should have seen it to believe it.

That he could see such sights I must deny,
Unless he borrowed Betty Martin's eye.
A man that is himself walks in a line,
One, not himself, goes serpentine,
And as he rambles,
In crab-like scrambles,
The while his body works in curves,
His intellect as surely swerves,
And some such argument as this he utters,
"While men get cut we must have cutters,
As long as Jack will have his rum,
We must have pink, corvette, and bomb,
Each sort of craft
Since Noah's old raft,
Frigate and brig,
Ships of all rig,
We must have fleets, because our sailors swig,
But only get our tars to broths and soups,
And see how slops will do away with sloops!
Turn flip to flummery, and grog to gravy,
And then what need has England of a navy?"

Forgive my muse; she is a saucy hussy,
But she declares such reasoning sounds muzzy,
And that, as sure as Dover stands at Dover,
The man who entertains so strange a notion
Of governing the ocean,
Has been but half seas over.

Again: when sober people talk
On soberness, would not their words all walk
Straight to the point, instead of zig-zag trials,
Of both sides of the way, till having crost
And crost, they find themselves completely lost
Like gentlemen, -- rather cut -- in Seven Dials?
Just like the sentence following in fact:
"Every Act
Of the Legislature," (so it runs) "should flow
Over the bed," ---- of what? -- begin your guesses.
The Bed of Ware?
The State Bed of the May'r?

One at the Hummums? Of MacAdam's? No.
A parsley bed?
Of cabbage, green or red?
Of onions? daffodils? of water-cresses?
A spare-bed with a friend -- one full of fleas?
At Bedford, or Bedhampton? -- None of these.
The Thames's bed? The bed of the New River?
A Kennel? brick-kiln? or a stack of hay?
Of church-yard clay,
The bed that's made for ev'ry mortal liver?
No -- give it up, -- all guessing I defy in it,
It is the bed of "Truth," -- "inspired" forsooth,
As, if you gave your best best-bed to Truth
She'd lie in it!
Come, Mr. Buckingham, be candid, come,
Didn't that metaphor want "seeing home?"

What man, who did not see far more than real,
Drink's beau ideal, --
Could fancy the mechanic so well thrives.
In these hard times,
The source of half his crimes
Is going into gin-shops changing fives!
Whate'er had wash'd such theoretic throats,
After a soundish sleep, till twelve next day,
And, perhaps, a gulp of soda -- did not they
All change their notes?

Suppose, mind, Mr. B., I say, suppose
You were the landlord of the Crown -- the Rose --
The Cock and Bottle, or the Prince of Wales,
The Devil and the Bag of Nails,
The Crown and Thistle,
The Pig and Whistle,
Magpie and Stump -- take which you like,
The question equally will strike;
Suppose your apron on -- top-boots, -- fur cap --
Keeping an eye to bar and tap,
When in comes, muttering like mad,
The strangest customer you ever had!

Well, after rolling eyes and mouthing,
And calling for a go of nothing,
He thus accosts you in a tone of malice:
"Here's pillars, curtains, gas, plate-glass -- What not?
Zounds! Mr. Buckingham, the shop you've got
Beats Buckingham Palace!

It's not to be allowed, Sir; I'm a Saint,
So I've brought a paint-brush, and a pot of paint, --
You deal in Gin, Sir,
Glasses of Sin, Sir;
No word -- Gin wholesome! -- You're a story-teller --
I don't mind Satan standing at your back,
The Spirit moveth me to go about,
And paint your premises inside and out,
Black, Sir, coal black,
Coal black, Sir, from the garret to the cellar.

I'll teach you to sell gin -- and, what is more,
To keep your wicked customers therefrom,
I'll paint a Great Death's Head upon your door --
Write underneath it, if you please -- Old Tom!"
Should such a case occur,
How would you act with the intruder, Sir?
Surely, not cap in hand, you'd stand and bow,
But after hearing him proceed thus far,
(Mind -- locking up the bar)
You'd seek the first policeman near,
"Here, take away this fellow, here,
The rascal is as drunk as David's Sow!"

If I may ask again -- between
Ourselves and the General Post, I mean --
What was that gentleman's true situation
Who said -- but could he really stand
To what he said? -- "In Scottish land
The cause of Drunkenness was education!"

Only, good Mr. Buckingham, conceive it!
In modern Athens, a fine classic roof,
Christened the High School -- that is, over proof!
Conceive the sandy laddies ranged in classes,
With quaichs and bickers, drinking-horns and glasses,
Ready to take a lesson in Glenlivet!

Picture the little Campbells and M'Gregors,
Dancing half fou', by way of learning figures;
And Murrays, -- not as Lindley used to teach --
Attempting verbs when past their parts of speech --
Imagine Thompson, learning A B C,
By O D V.
Fancy a dunce that will not drink his wash, --
And Master Peter Alexander Weddel
Invested with a medal
For getting on so very far-in-tosh.

Fancy the Dominie -- a droughty body,
Giving a lecture upon making toddy,
Till having emptied every stoup and cup,
He cries, "Lads! go and play -- the school is up!"

To Scotland, Ireland is akin
In drinking, like as twin to twin, --
When other means are all adrift,
A liquor-shop is Pat's last shift,
Till reckoning Erin round from store to store,
There is one whiskey shop in four.
Then who, but with a fancy rather frisky,
And warm besides, and generous with whiskey,
Not seeing most particularly clear,
Would recommend to make the drunkards thinner,
By shutting up the publican and sinner
With pensions each of fifty pounds a year?
Ods! taps and topers! private stills and worms!
What doors you'd soon have open to your terms!

To men of common gumption,
How strange, besides, must seem
At this time any scheme
To put a check upon potheen's consumption,
When all are calling out for Irish Poor Laws!
Instead of framing more laws,
To pauperism, if you'd give a pegger,
Don't check, but patronise their "Kill-the-Beggar!"

If Pat is apt to go in Irish Linen,
(Buttoning his coat, with nothing but his skin in)
Would any Christian man -- that's quite himself,
His wits not floor'd, or laid upon the shelf --
While blaming Pat for raggedness, poor boy,
Would he deprive him of his "Corduroy!"

Would any gentleman, unless inclining
To tipsy, take a board upon his shoulder,
Near Temple Bar, thus warning the beholder,
"BEWARE OF TWINING?"
Are tea-dealers, indeed, so deep-designing,
As one of your select would set us thinking,
That to each tea-chest we should say Tu Doces,
(Or doses,)
Thou tea-chest drinking?

What would be said of me
Should I attempt to trace
The vice of drinking to the high in place,
And says its root was on the top o' the tree?
But I am not pot-valiant, and I shun
To say how high potheen might have a run.

What would you think, if, talking about stingo,
I told you that a lady friend of mine,
By only looking at her wine
Flushed in her face as red as a flamingo?
Would you not ask of me, like many more, --
"Pray, Sir, what had the lady had before?"

Suppose at sea, in Biscay's bay of bays, --
A rum cask bursting in a blaze, --
Should I be thought half tipsy or whole drunk,
If running all about the deck I roar'd
"I say, is ever a Cork man aboard?"
Answered by some Hibernian Jack Junk,
While hitching up his tarry trowser, --
How would it sound in sober ears, O how, Sir,
If I should bellow with redoubled noise,
"Then sit upon the bung-hole, broth of boys?"

When men -- the fact's well known -- reel to and fro,
A little what is called how-come-you-so,
They think themselves as steady as a steeple,
And lay their staggerings on other people --
Taking that fact in pawn,
What proper inference would then be drawn
By e'er a dray-horse with a head to his tail,
Should anybody cry,
To some one going by,
"O fie! O fie! O fie!
You're drunk -- you've nigh had half a pint of ale!"

One certain sign of fumes within the skull
They say is being rather slow and dull,
Oblivious quite of what we are about --
No one can doubt
Some weighty queries rose, and yet you missed 'em,
For instance, when a doctor so bethumps
What he denominates "the forcing system,"
Nobody asks him about forcing-pumps!

Oh say, with hand on heart,
Suppose that I should start
Some theory like this, --
"When Genesis
Was written -- before man became a glutton,
And in his appetites ran riot,
Content with simple vegetable diet,
Eating his turnips without leg of mutton,
His spinach without lamb -- carrots sans beef,
'Tis my belief
He was a polypus, and I'm convinc'd
Made other men when he was hash'd or minc'd," --
Did I in such a style as this proceed,
Would you not say I was Farre gone indeed?

Excuse me, if I doubt at each Assize
How sober it would look in public eyes,
For our King's Counsel and our learned Judges
When trying thefts, assaults, frauds, murders, arsons,
To preach from texts of temperance like parsons,
By way of giving tipplers gentle nudges.
Imagine my Lord Bayley, Parke, or Park,
Donning the fatal sable cap, and hark,
"These sentences must pass, howe'er I'm pang'd,
You, Brandy, must return -- and Rum the same --
To the Goose and Gridiron, whence you came --
Gin! Reverend Mr. Cotton and Jack Ketch
Your spirit jointly will despatch --
Whiskey, be hang'd!"

Suppose that some fine morning,
Mounted upon a pile of Dunlop cheeses,
I gave the following as public warning,
Would there not be sly winking, coughs and sneezes?
Or dismal hiss of universal scorn.
"My brethren, don't be born, --
But if you're born, be well advised --
Don't be baptized.
If both take place, still at the worst
Do not be nursed, --
At every birth each gossip dawdle
Expects her caudle;
At christenings, too, drink always hands about,
Nurses will have their porter or their stout, --
Don't wear clean linen, for it leads to sin, --
All washerwomen make a stand for gin --
If you're a minister -- to keep due stinting,
Never preach sermons that are worth the printing,
Avoid a steam-boat with a lady in her,
And when you court, watch Miss well after dinner,
Never run bills, or if you do don't pay,
And give your butter and your cheese away, --
Build yachts and pleasure-boats if you are rich,
But never have them launched or payed with pitch,
In fine, for Temperance if you stand high,
Don't die!"
Did I preach thus, Sir, should I not appear
Just like the "parson much bemused with beer?"

Thus far, O Mr. Buckingham, I've gather'd,
But here, alas! by space my pen is tether'd,
And I can merely thank you all in short,
The witnesses that have been called in court,
And the Committee for their kind Report,
Whence I have picked and puzzled out this moral,
With which you must not quarrel,
'Tis based in charity -- That men are brothers,
And those who make a fuss,
About their Temperance thus,
Are not so much more temperate than others.





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