I remember, I remember...

I remember, I remember the house where I was born,
The little window where the sun came creeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon nor brought too long a day;
(But now, I often wish the night had borne my breath away.)

This is the first verse of a poem by Thomas Hood 1798-1845.

My mother used to recite it to me, but it wasn't until I saw it in print that I realized what a sadness it all is. It begins so beautifully, and I always think of the spare room at the Manor House where most of us were born. A special room to me it is, where I first gasped for life's breath, and where my darling Dad drew his last. There was a cupboard in the corner with a big step down, down, down, where my Grandmother kept her fur coats, and there were hat-boxes, and it smelt of mothballs and other smells that I can't describe; old smells; smells I wasn't supposed to smell because I'm sure I wasn't really meant to be in that secret place.

You probably noticed that Thomas Hood was only 47 when he died. So, how did he die? The last line of that first verse seems to tell that he wished he had died at birth. How sad. It doesn't get any better in the next few verses, so I shan't print them here. Did he die of a broken heart? Did he succomb to TB or smallpox or influenza or a common cold? I put the fourth line in brackets and italicized it because it doesn't belong to this sweet thought: I remember, I remember the house where I was born, The little window where the sun came creeping in at morn...I can even remember the scraping sound of the curtains in the spare room when they were drawn!...