Monody on the Death of Chatterton (1834)

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

For other versions of this poem, see Monody on the Death of Chatterton.

O what a wonder seems the fear of death,
Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep,
Babes, Children, Youths, and Men,
Night following night for threescore years and ten!
But doubly strange, where life is but a breath
To sigh and pant with, up Want’s rugged steep.

Away, Grim Phantom! Scorpion King, away!
Reserve thy terrors and thy stings display
For coward Wealth and Guilt in robes of State!
Lo! by the grave I stand of one, for whom  10
A prodigal Nature and a niggard Doom
(That all bestowing, this withholding all)
Made each chance knell from distant spire or dome
Sound like a seeking Mother’s anxious call,
Return, poor Child! Home, weary Truant, home!

Thee, Chatterton! these unblest stones protect
From want, and the bleak freezings of neglect.
Too long before the vexing Storm-blast driven
Here hast thou found repose! beneath this sod!
Thou! O vain word! thou dwell’st not with the clod!  20
Amid the shining Host of the Forgiven
Thou at the throne of mercy and thy God
The triumph of redeeming Love dost hymn
(Believe it, O my Soul!) to harps of Seraphim.

Yet oft, perforce ('tis suffering Nature’s call),
I weep that heaven-born Genius so should fall;
And oft, in Fancy’s saddest hour, my soul
Averted shudders at the poison’d bowl.
Now groans my sickening heart, as still I view
Thy corse of livid hue;  30
Now Indignation checks the feeble sigh,
Or flashes through the tear that glistens in mine eye!

Is this the land of song-ennobled line?
Is this the land, where Genius ne’er in vain
Pour’d forth his lofty strain?
Ah me! yet Spenser, gentlest bard divine,
Beneath chill Disappointment’s shade,
His weary limbs in lonely anguish lay’d.
And o’er her darling dead
Pity hopeless hung her head, 40
While "mid the pelting of that merciless storm,"
Sunk to the cold earth Otway’s famish’d form!

Sublime of thought, and confident of fame,
From vales where Avon winds the Minstrel came.
Light-hearted youth! aye, as he hastes along,
He meditates the future song,
How dauntless ælla fray’d the Dacyan foe;
And while the numbers flowing strong
In eddies whirl, in surges throng,
Exulting in the spirits’ genial throe  50
In tides of power his life-blood seems to flow.

And now his cheeks with deeper ardors flame,
His eyes have glorious meanings, that declare
More than the light of outward day shines there,
A holier triumph and a sterner aim!
Wings grow within him; and he soars above
Or Bard’s or Minstrel’s lay of war or love.
Friend to the friendless, to the sufferer health,
He hears the widow’s prayer, the good man’s praise;
To scenes of bliss transmutes his fancied wealth, 60
And young and old shall now see happy days.
On many a waste he bids trim gardens rise,
Gives the blue sky to many a prisoner’s eyes;
And now in wrath he grasps the patriot steel,
And her own iron rod he makes Oppression feel.
Sweet Flower of Hope! free Nature’s genial child!
That didst so fair disclose thy early bloom,
Filling the wide air with a rich perfume!
For thee in vain all heavenly aspects smil’d;
From the hard world brief respite could they win —  70
The frost nipp’d sharp without, the canker prey’d within!
Ah! where are fled the charms of vernal Grace,
And Joy’s wild gleams that lighten’d o’er thy face?
Youth of tumultuous soul, and haggard eye!
Thy wasted form, thy hurried steps I view,
On thy wan forehead starts the lethal dew,
And oh! the anguish of that shuddering sigh!

Such were the struggles of the gloomy hour,
When Care, of wither’d brow,
Prepar’d the poison’s death-cold power:  80
Already to thy lips was rais’d the bowl,
When near thee stood Affection meek
(Her bosom bare, and wildly pale her cheek)
Thy sullen gaze she bade thee roll
On scenes that well might melt thy soul;
Thy native cot she flash’d upon thy view,
Thy native cot, where still, at close of day,
Peace smiling sate, and listen’d to thy lay;
Thy Sister’s shrieks she bade thee hear,
And mark thy Mother’s thrilling tear;  90
See, see her breast’s convulsive throe,
Her silent agony of woe!
Ah! dash the poison’d chalice from thy hand!

And thou hadst dashed it, at her soft command,
But that Despair and Indignation rose,
And told again the story of thy woes;
Told the keen insult of the unfeeling heart,
The dread dependence on the low-born mind;
Told every pang, with which thy soul must smart,
Neglect, and grinning Scorn, and Want combined!  100
Recoiling quick, thou badest the friend of pain
Roll the black tide of Death through every freezing vein!

O spirit blest!
Whether the Eternal’s throne around,
Amidst the blaze of Seraphim,
Thou pourest forth the grateful hymn,
Or soaring thro’ the blest domain
Enrapturest Angels with thy strain, —
Grant me, like thee, the lyre to sound,
Like thee with fire divine to glow; —  110
But ah! when rage the waves of woe,
Grant me with firmer breast to meet their hate,
And soar beyond the storm with upright eye elate!

Ye woods! that wave o’er Avon’s rocky steep,
To Fancy’s ear sweet is your murmuring deep!
For here she loves the cypress wreath to weave;
Watching with wistful eye, the saddening tints of eve.
Here, far from men, amid this pathless grove,
In solemn thought the Minstrel wont to rove,
Like star-beam on the slow sequester’d tide  120
Lone-glittering, through the high tree branching wide.

And here, in Inspiration’s eager hour,
When most the big soul feels the mastering power,
These wilds, these caverns roaming o’er,
Round which the screaming sea-gulls soar,
With wild unequal steps he pass’d along,
Oft pouring on the winds a broken song:
Anon, upon some rough rock’s fearful brow
Would pause abrupt — and gaze upon the waves below.

Poor Chatterton! he sorrows for thy fate  130
Who would have prais’d and lov’d thee, ere too late.
Poor Chatterton! farewell! of darkest hues
This chaplet cast I on thy unshaped tomb;
But dare no longer on the sad theme muse,
Lest kindred woes persuade a kindred doom:
For oh! big gall-drops, shook from Folly’s wing,
Have blacken’d the fair promise of my spring;
And the stern Fate transpierc’d with viewless dart
The last pale Hope that shiver’d at my heart!

Hence, gloomy thoughts! no more my soul shall dwell  140
On joys that were! no more endure to weigh
The shame and anguish of the evil day,
Wisely forgetful! O’er the ocean swell
Sublime of Hope I seek the cottag’d dell
Where Virtue calm with careless step may stray;
And, dancing to the moon-light roundelay,
The wizard Passions weave an holy spell!

O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive!
Sure thou would’st spread the canvass to the gale,
And love with us the tinkling team to drive  150
O’er peaceful Freedom’s undivided dale;
And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng,
Would hang, enraptur’d, on thy stately song,
And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy
All deftly mask’d as hoar Antiquity.

Alas, vain Phantasies! the fleeting brood
Of Woe self-solac’d in her dreamy mood!
Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream,
Where Susquehannah pours his untamed stream;
And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side  160
Waves o’er the murmurs of his calmer tide,
Will raise a solemn Cenotaph to thee,
Sweet Harper of time-shrouded Minstrelsy!
And there, sooth’d sadly by the dirgeful wind,
Muse on the sore ills I had left behind.