| James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902. | | | | August 25 | | On the Death of Chatterton | | By Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) |
| | | | From “Monody on Chatterton” |
| Thomas Chatterton, an English poet of extraordinary precocity, committed suicide in London at the early age of seventeen, August 25, 1770. |
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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, when life is but a breath | 5 |
| To sigh and pant with, up Want’s rugged steep. | |
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| 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! | 15 |
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| 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. | | | |
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