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The Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton

with an essay on the Rowley poems by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat and a memoir by Edward Bell

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266

LAST VERSES.

Farewell, Bristolia's dingy piles of brick,
Lovers of Mammon, worshippers of Trick!
Ye spurned the boy who gave you antique lays,
And paid for learning with your empty praise.

267

Farewell, ye guzzling aldermanic fools,
By nature fitted for Corruption's tools!
I go to where celestial anthems swell;
But you, when you depart, will sink to hell.
Farewell, my mother!—cease, my anguished soul,
Nor let Distraction's billows o'er me roll!
Have mercy, Heaven! when here I cease to live,
And this last act of wretchedness forgive.
T. C.
August 24, 1770.