Hence gloomy thoughts
No more my soul shall dwell
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
No more my soul shall dwell
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
Thomas Chatterton was an English poet and forger of pseudo-medieval poetry, who served as an icon of unacknowledged genius for the Romantics... On 24 August 1770, he retired for the last time to his attic in Brook Street, carrying with him the arsenic which he drank, after tearing into fragments whatever literary remains were at hand. He was only seventeen years and nine months old...
::: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Chatterton
Why then write Sonnets or Monodies? Because they give me pleasure when perhaps nothing else could. After the more violent emotions of Sorrow, the mind demands solace and can find it in employment alone; but full of its late sufferings it can endure no employment not connected with those sufferings.
::: http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/2000/v/n17/005900ar.html
