by Keats · Cluster: Stars · Night · Military Camp
Abstract
An elegiac sonnet mourning the young poet Chatterton, dead before his prime yet now immortal among the stars; grief, the dead poet and posthumous fame.
Connections
Topoi: Immortality Through Verse Archetypes: Martyr Saint Motifs: Death, Stars, Flowers Themes & Concepts: Grief and Loss, Mortality, Immortality of Art Fame Forms & Genres: Elegy, Sonnet
Testo integrale / Full text
O Chatterton! how very sad thy fate!
Dear child of sorrow - son of misery!
How soon the film of death obscur’d that eye,
Whence Genius mildly flash’d, and high debate.
How soon that voice, majestic and elate,
Melted in dying numbers! Oh! how nigh
Was night to thy fair morning. Thou didst die
A half-blown flow’ret which cold blasts amate.
But this is past: thou art among the stars
Of highest Heaven: to the rolling spheres 10
Thou sweetly singest: naught thy hymning mars,
Above the ingrate world and human fears.
On earth the good man base detraction bars
From thy fair name, and waters it with tears.