Thomas Hood

Ballad: She's up and gone, the graceless girl

She's up and gone, the graceless girl,

Generational Loss

The verb 'robb'd' suggests the daughter has stolen something essential—youth, hope, future.

And robb'd my failing years!
My blood before was thin and cold

Biblical Grief Language

Blood turning to tears is a metaphorical description of profound emotional devastation, echoing biblical lament.

But now 'tis turn'd to tears;—
My shadow falls upon my grave,
So near the brink I stand,
She might have stay'd a little yet,
And led me by the hand!

Symbolic Landscape

The 'barren moor' and 'hill' represent emotional emptiness and isolation after the daughter's departure.

Aye, call her on the barren moor,
And call her on the hill:
'Tis nothing but the heron's cry,
And plover's answer shrill;
My child is flown on wilder wings
Than they have ever spread,
And I may even walk a waste
That widen'd when she fled.
Full many a thankless child has been,
But never one like mine;
Her meat was served on plates of gold,

Class and Abandonment

Contrast between 'plates of gold' and 'robin's food' reveals the daughter's dramatic social descent.

Her drink was rosy wine;
But now she'll share the robin's food,
And sup the common rill,
Before her feet will turn again
To meet her father's will!
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Victorian Daughter Dynamics

Thomas Hood's poem exposes the brutal emotional landscape of familial rejection in 19th-century England. Patriarchal structures meant daughters could be entirely cut off, losing social status and familial protection with a single transgression.

The father's language oscillates between rage and profound grief, suggesting the depth of emotional investment even in apparent rejection. His metaphorical description of becoming a walking absence ('widen'd when she fled') reveals how deeply her departure has transformed him.

Poetic Technique of Abandonment

Hood uses ballad form to create a stark, rhythmic exploration of loss. The regular meter and rhyme scheme contrast with the raw emotional content, creating tension between formal control and emotional chaos.

The natural imagery—herons, plovers, robins—becomes a projection of the father's internal landscape, transforming the physical environment into an emotional metaphor of isolation and loss.