Dark as twice ten thousand hells Is the gibberish which he spatters. Now a most dismal elegy he sings,

Groans, doleful groans are heard about;

The Issacharian rout

Swell the sharp howl, and loud the sorrow rings.

He sung a modern buck whose end
Was blinded prejudice and zeal.

In life to every vice a friend,

Unfix'd as fortune on her wheel.

He lived a buck, he died a fool,
So let him to oblivion fall,

Who thought a wretched body all,
Untaught in nature's or the passion's school.

Now he takes another theme,

Thus he tells his waking dream.

Air.

After fasting and praying and grunting and weeping,
My guardian angel beheld me fast sleeping;

And instantly capering into my brain,
Relieved me from prison of bodily chain.

The soul can be every thing as you all know,
And mine was transform'd to the shape of a crow.

(The preacher or metre has surely mistook,
For all must confess that a parson's a rook.)
Having wings, as I think I inform'd ye before,

I shot through a cavern and knock'd at hell's door. Out comes Mr. Porter Devil,

And, I'll assure ye, very civil.

"Dear sir," quoth he, "pray step within,

The company is drinking tea;

We have a stranger just come in,

A brother from the triple tree."

Well, in I walk'd, and what d'ye think? Instead of sulphur, fire and stink,

'Twas like a masquerade,

All grandeur, all parade. Here stood an amphitheatre,

There stood the small Haymarket-house,

With devil actors very clever,

Who without blacking did Othello.
And truly a huge horned fellow
Told me, he hoped I would endeavour
To learn a part, and get a souse,
For pleasure was the business there.

A lawyer ask'd me for a fee,

To plead my right to drinking tea; I begg'd his pardon, to my thinking I'd rather have a cheering cup. For tea was but insipid drinking, And brandy rais'd the spirits up. So having seen a place in hell, I straight awoke, and found all well.

Recitative.

Now again his cornets sounding,

Sense and harmony confounding,

Reason tortur'd, scripture twisted,

Into every form of fancy :
Forms which never yet existed,

And but his oblique optics can see.

He swears,

He tears,

With sputter'd nonsense now he breaks the ears;
At last the sermon and the paper ends;
He whines, and hopes his well-beloved friends
Will contribute their souse

To pay the arrears for building a house.
With spiritual doctors, and doctors for poxes,
Who all must be satisfied out of the boxes.
Hark! hark!-his cry resounds,

Fire and thunder, blood and wounds,

Contribute, contribute,

And pay me my tribute,

Or the devil, I swear,

Shall hunt ye as sportsmen would hunt a poor hare. Whoever gives, unto the Lord he lends.

The saint is melted, pays his fee, and wends; And here the tedious length'ning Journal ends.

ELEGY.*

Why blooms the radiance of the morning sky?
Why spring the beauties of the season round?
Why buds the blossom with the glossy dye?
Ah! why does nature beautify the ground?

Whilst softly floating on the zephyr's wing,

The melting accents of the thrushes rise; And all the heavenly music of the spring,

Steal on the sense, and harmonize the skies.

When the rack'd soul is not attuned to joy,

When sorrow an internal monarch reigns: In vain the choristers their powers employ, 'Tis hateful music, and discordant strains.

The velvet mantle of the skirted mead,
The rich varieties of Flora's pride,
Till the full bosom is from trouble freed,
Disgusts the eye, and bids the big tear glide.

Once, ere the gold-hair'd sun shot the new ray Through the grey twilight of the dubious morn, To woodlands, lawn, and hills, I took my way, And list'ned to the echoes of the horn;

This poem was printed in the Town and Country Magazine for February, 1770, and was signed with Chatterton's initials, and dated Shoreditch.

Dwelt on the prospect, sought the varied view,
Traced the meanders of the bubbling stream:
From joy to joy, uninterrupted flew,

And thought existence but a fairy dream.

Now through the gloomy cloister's length'ning way, Through all the terror superstition frames,

I lose the minutes of the lingering day,

And view the night light up her pointed flames.

I dare the danger of the mould'ring wall,

Nor heed the arch that totters o'er my head: O! quickly may the friendly ruin fall,

M.

Release me of my love, and strike me dead.

!cruel, sweet, inexorable fair,

O! must I unregarded seek the grave! Must I from all my bosom holds repair,

When one indulgent smile from thee would save.

Let mercy plead my cause; and think, oh! think! A love like mine but ill deserves thy hate : Remember, I am tottering on the brink,

Thy smile or censure seals my final fate.