ELEGY. Thomas Chatterton Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T39457 K039720.000 Chatterton, Thomas, 1752-1770. Miscellanies in Prose and Verse; by Thomas Chatterton, the supposed author of the poems published under the names of Rowley, Canning, &c. London printed for Fielding and Walker, Pater-Noster Row, MDCCLXXVIII. 1778 pp. 79-80. xxxii,245,[3]p.,plates; 8⁰.

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ELEGY . HASTE , haste , ye solemn messengers of night , Spread the black mantle on the shrinking plain ; But , ah ! my torments still survive the light , The changing seasons alter not my pain . Ye variegated children of the spring ; Ye blossoms blushing with the pearly dew ; Ye birds that sweetly in the hawthorn sing ; Ye flow'ry meadows , lawns of verdant hue , Faint are your colours ; harsh your love-notes thrill , To me no pleasure Nature now can yield : Alike the barren rock and woody hill , The dark-brown blasted heath , and fruitful field . Ye spouting cataracts , ye silver streams ; Ye spacious rivers , whom the willow shrowds ; Ascend the bright-crown'd sun's far-shining beams , To aid the mournful tear-distilling clouds . Ye noxious vapours , fall upon my head ; Ye writhing adders , round my feet entwine ; Ye toads , your venom in my foot-path spread ; Ye blasting meteors , upon me shine . Ye circling seasons , intercept the year ; Forbid the beauties of the spring to rise ; Let not the life-preserving grain appear ; Let howling tempests harrow up the skies . Ye cloud-girt , moss-grown turrets , look no more Into the palace of the god of day : Ye loud tempestuous billows , cease to roar , In plaintive numbers , thro' the valleys stray . Ye verdant-vested trees , forget to grow , Cast off the yellow foliage of your pride : Ye softly tinkling riv'lets , cease to flow , Or swell'd with certain death and poison , glide . Ye solemn warblers of the gloomy night , That rest in lightning-blasted oaks the day , Thro' the black mantles take your slow-pac'd flight , Rending the silent wood with shrieking lay . Ye snow-crown'd mountains , lost to mortal eyes , Down to the valleys bend your hoary head , Ye livid comets , fire the peopled skies — For — lady Betty's tabby cat is dead .