No more our raptur'd eyes shall meet thy form,
No more thy melting tones our bosoms warm.
Without thy pow'rful aid, the languid stage
No more can please at once and mend the age.
Yes, thou art gone! and thy beloved remains
Yon sacred old cathedral wall contains ;
There does the muffled bell our grief reveal,
And solemn organs swell the mournful peal;
Whilst hallow'd dirges fill the holy shrine,
Deserved tribute to such worth as thine.
No more at Clifton's scenes my strains o'erflow,
For the Muse, drooping at this tale of woe,
Slackens the strings of her enamour'd lyre,
The flood of gushing grief puts out her fire:
Else would she sing the deeds of other times,
Of saints and heroes sung in monkish rhymes;
Else would her soaring fancy burn to stray,
And through the cloister'd aisle would take her
Where sleep, (ah! mingling with the common dust,)
The sacred bodies of the brave and just.
But vain the attempt to scan that holy lore,
These soft'ning sighs forbid the Muse to soar.
So treading back the steps I just now trod,
Mournful and sad I seek my lone abode.
BY A BOOKSELLER'S JOURNEYMAN.1
VERSED by experience in the subtle art,
The myst'ries of a title I impart :
Teach the young author how to please the town,
And make the heavy drug of rhyme go down.
Since Curl, immortal never-dying name!
A double pica in the book of fame,
By various arts did various dunces prop,
And tickled every fancy to his shop:
Who can, like Pottinger, insure a book?
Who judges with the solid taste of Cooke?
Villains exalted in the midway sky,
Shall live again to drain your purses dry:
Nor yet unrivalled they see Baldwin comes,
Rich in inventions, patents, cuts, and hums:
The honourable Boswell writes, 'tis true,
What else can Paoli's supporter do.
The trading wits endeavour to attain,
Like booksellers, the world's first idol-gain:
1 Copied from a MS. of Chatterton.
For this they puff the heavy Goldsmith's line,
And hail his sentiment, though trite, divine;
For this the patriotic bard complains,
And Bingley binds poor liberty in chains:
For this was every reader's faith deceived,
And Edmunds swore what nobody believed: .
For this the wits in close disguises fight;
For this the varying politicians write ;
For this each month new magazines are sold,
With dulness fill'd and transcripts of the old.
The Town and Country struck a lucky hit,
Was novel, sentimental, full of wit:
Aping her walk the same success to find,
The Court and City hobbles far behind:
Sons of Apollo learn: merit's no more
Than a good frontispiece to grace the door :
The author who invents a title well,
Will always find his cover'd dulness sell:
Flexney and every bookseller will buy,
Bound in neat calf, the work will never die.
WRITTEN BY CHATTERTON, TO A LADY IN BRISTOL.1
To use a worn-out simile,
From flower to flower the busy bee
With anxious labour flies,
Alike from scents which give distaste,
By Fancy as disgusting plac'd,
Repletes his useful thighs.
Nor does his vicious taste prefer
The fopling of some gay parterre,
The mimicry of art!
But round the meadow-violet dwells,
Nature replenishing his cells,
Does ampler stores impart.
So I a humble-dumble drone,
Anxious and restless when alone,
1 From a copy given by Chatterton to Mr. H. Kater, of Bristol.
Seek comfort in the fair;
And featur'd up in tenfold brass,
A rhyming, staring, am'rous ass,
To you address my prayer.
But ever in my lovelorn flights
Nature untouch'd by art delights-
Art ever gives disgust.
Why, says some priest of mystic thought,
The bard alone by nature taught,
Is to that nature just.
But ask your orthodox divine,
If ye perchance should read this line
Which fancy now inspires:
Will all his sermons, preaching, prayers,
His hell, his heaven, his solemn airs,
Quench nature's rising fires?
In natural religion free,
I to no other bow the knee,
Nature's the God I own:
Let priests of future torments tell,
Your anger is the only hell,
No other hell is known.
I steel'd by destiny was born,
Well fenced against a woman's scorn,
Regardless of that hell;
I fired by burning planets came
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