CHATTERTON.
[_]
Stanzas on reading the Verses entitled ‘Resignation,’ written
by Chatterton a few days before his melancholy end.
A dying swan of Pindus sings
In wildly mournful strains;
As Death's cold fingers snap the strings,
His suffering lyre complains.
Soft as the mist of evening wends
Along the shadowy vale:
Sad as in storms the moon ascends,
And turns the darkness pale:
So soft the melting numbers flow
From his harmonious lips;
So sad his woe-wan features show,
Just fading in eclipse.
The Bard, to dark despair resign'd,
With his expiring art,
Sings, midst the tempest of his mind,
The shipwreck of his heart.
If Hope still seem to linger nigh,
And hover o'er his head,
Her pinions are too weak to fly,
Or Hope ere now had fled.
Rash Minstrel! who can hear thy songs,
Nor long to share thy fire?
Who read thine errors and thy wrongs,
Nor execrate the lyre?
The lyre, that sunk thee to the grave,
When bursting into bloom,—
That lyre, the power to Genius gave
To blossom in the tomb.
Yes, till his memory fail with years,
Shall Time thy strains recite;
And while thy story swells his tears,
Thy song shall charm his flight.
1802.
