The Gouler's Requiem

Mie boolie Entes, adiewe : ne more the Syghte
Of guilden Merke shalle mete mie joieous Eyne;
Ne moe the sylver Noble sheenynge bryghte,
Shalle fylle mie hande wythe weighte to speke ytte fyne;
Ne moe : Ne Moe : alas, I calle you myne;
Whyder must you? - ah, whydher moste I goe?
I kenne not either! Oh mie Emmers dygne.
To parte wythe you wyll wurche me myckle Woe.
I must begon, butte where I dare nott telle,
O Storth unto mie mynde, I fere to Helle!

Gouler miser; Boolie beloved; Entes coffers; Merke marks; Emmers dygne worthy comforters; Storth death

'The marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride'

Wordsworth's lines on Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) contributed to a legend that became better known than Chatterton's work itself. His story is moving: a sensitive, unhappy boy, he fell in love with the medieval world and escaped into it from miserable schooling and the drudgery of apprenticeship. He read and then wrote 'medieval' poetry which he passed off as genuine. When the poems he wrote in his own name brought him some success, he went to London to seek his fortune as a writer. After six months' struggle, too proud to admit defeat, starving and alone, he killed himself in his attic room. He was seventeen.

There is more to Chatterton than the romantic archetype. His poetry was admired by Keats, Shelley, Coleridge and Wordsworth; as Grevel Lindop says in his introduction, 'Chatterton's work contains in essence the whole of Romanticism'. This selection, with its detailed notes, shows the historical significance and unexpected range of Chatterton's poetry, and also enables the reader to enjoy it for its rich resonance and wonderfully memorable rhythms.

Table of Contents

PREFACE - Grevel Lindop



INTRODUCTION - Grevel Lindop

I The Poet
II The Poetry
III The Technicalities of Rowley
IV Chatterton's Reputation
V The Text and Editorial Matter



ACKNOWLEDGED POEMS



     Apostate Will

To Horace Walpole

from Journal 6th

from Elegy to the Memory of Mr.Thomas Phillips

The Defence

A Bacchanalian

To Miss Hoyland

from February: An Elegy

The Art of Puffing

On the Immortality of the Soul


ROWLEY POEMS



from AElla

An Excelente Balade of Charitie

from The Parlyamente of Sprytes

Eclogue the Third

The World

'There was a Broder of Orderys Blacke

'There was a Broder of Orderys White

The Gouler's Requiem

Onn Johne a Dalbenie


NOTES



APPENDIX A: Chatterton's Last Verses'


APPENDIX B: Chatterton's Will