O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive! Sure thou would'st spread the canvass to the gale, And love with us the tinkling team to drive 150 O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale; And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng, Would hang, enraptur'd, on thy stately song, And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy All deftly mask'd as hoar Antiquity. 155 Alas, vain Phantasies! the fleeting brood Of Woe self-solac'd in her dreamy mood! Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream, Where Susquehannah pours his untamed stream; And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side 160 Waves o'er the murmurs of his calmer tide, Will raise a solemn Cenotaph to thee, Sweet Harper of time-shrouded Minstrelsy! And there, sooth'd sadly by the dirgeful wind, Muse on the sore ills I had left behind. 165 1790-1834. FOOTNOTES: [125:1] The 'Monody', &c., dated in eds. 1796, 1797, 1803, 'October, 1794,' was first published at Cambridge in 1794, in _Poems_, By Thomas Rowley [i. e. Chatterton] and others edited by Lancelot Sharpe (pp. xxv-xxviii). An _Introductory Note_ was prefixed:--'The Editor thinks himself happy in the permission of an ingenious friend to insert the following Monody.' The variants marked 1794 are derived from that work. The 'Monody' was not included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817. For MS. variants _vide ante_, 'Monody', &c., Christ's Hospital Version. Coleridge told Cottle, May 27, 1814 that lines 1-4 were written when he was 'a mere boy' (_Reminiscences_, 1847, p. 348); and, again, April 22, 1819, he told William Worship that they were written 'in his thirteenth year as a school exercise'. The Monody numbered 107 lines in 1794, 143 in 1796, 135 in 1797, 119 in 1803, 143 in 1828, 154 in 1829, and 165 lines in 1834. [127:1] Avon, a river near Bristol, the birth-place of Chatterton. LINENOTES: [1-15] When faint and sad o'er Sorrow's desart wild Slow journeys onward, poor Misfortune's child; When fades each lovely form by Fancy drest, And inly pines the self-consuming breast; (No scourge of scorpions in thy right arm dread, No helméd terrors nodding o'er thy head,) Assume, O DEATH! the cherub wings of PEACE, And bid the heartsick Wanderer's Anguish cease. 1794, 1796, 1797, 1803, 1828. [Lines 1-15 of the text were first printed in 1829.] [16] these] yon 1794, 1796, 1797, 1803, 1828. [18-24] Escap'd the sore wounds of Affliction's rod Meek at the throne of Mercy and of God, Perchance, thou raisest high th' enraptur'd hymn Amid the blaze of Seraphim! 1794, 1796, 1797, 1803, 1828. [25] Yet oft ('tis Nature's bosom-startling call) 1794, 1796, 1828: Yet oft ('tis Nature's call) 1797, 1803. [26] should] shall 1829. [30] Thy] The 1794. [31-32] And now a flash of Indignation high Darts through the tear that glistens in mine eye. 1794, 1796, 1797, 1803, 1828. [35] his] her 1794.