Chatterton

By Charles Edward Russell (1860–1941)

Thomas Chatterton, an English poet of extraordinary precocity, committed suicide in London at the early age of seventeen, August 25, 1770.

HE went his way to rest with weary feet,

Home-turning as one would that long had strayed

In stoniest pathways, for his love repaid

With mocking laughter, for his singing sweet

With fast-shut door and wind-swept echoing street.

Tired eyes and hopeless heart to the great shade

Crept beaten back at last but unafraid,

And stilled were wings for a sodden world too fleet.

He went his way; and we, in whose charmed ears

Live still the sound and throbbing of his song,

But for this picture of his darkening years

Might nothing know how bruised and baffled long

His soul soared singing to the brightest spheres

From that salt gulf of bitterness and wrong.