Bertha. I pity you the more: Imaginary woes are real to him Whom they oppress, and hardest to dispel; And if you truly do deserve your fate, Then have you more to bear.
Chatterton. You came in time; To-morrow--to-morrow might have been too late.
Bertha. My father soon will come, and I would ask--
Bertha. No, not your life; But that you nobly live.
Bertha. Give me some token; let it be a verse In your own hand.
Bertha. Have you not one among your papers there? I know 'tis much to ask.
Chatterton. No: it is yours. [Taking up a sheet of paper.] On melancholy--that will scarcely do.
Bertha. Read it to me, and I shall be the judge.
When silent are the chambers of the mind To rippling laughter and to whispering love, When Hope hath whirred away, a mourning dove, And bats dart in and out, and moans the wind, Then Melancholy comes, to night consigned, And haunts the moonlit windows. Perhaps above, Not on this earth, can shadowy thoughts that rove Like troubled ghosts a sweet oblivion find.
O like some cindered orb that shineth not, Yet holdeth still its planets as a sun, Is one burnt out by sorrow and o'erfraught With that mute anguish of a life undone-- That sinking of the heart, that deadly thought That all is lost and would be worthless won.
[Handing paper to her.] I would that it were better.
Chatterton. I wrote it on the midnight of the day I fell into a new-made grave.
Bertha. O, sir, Yield not to gloom; for you are rich in mind. Of all the boons the Fates propitious grant I'd choose the golden branch of poesy.
Chatterton. Each man doth pay a price for what he has. The very qualities of mind and heart That make a poet make a sufferer. The keenness of perception, which unfolds A realm of beauty hid to other eyes, Unmasks the world: shows him indifference Behind the flimsy guise of courtesy, The shallowness of friendship, the alloy Of self, debasing charity to trade. The vividness of his imagination, Which, in a garret, gives him trees and flowers, The cool salt sea and heaven's blue expanse, Enlarges troubles, and creates such fears He trembles at the possible in life. The sensibility, which treasures up Each word or look of kindness as a gem, Makes bitterer the haughtiness of birth, The vulgar swelling of a pompous purse, The slur, the slight, the mockery of fools. Beyond he sees a spiritual sphere, Where, by unselfishness, the terrible Becomes a valued teacher--where the power To wound through self is lost; yet cannot reach it. He is a medium through which all things speak: The human passions wrack his nervous frame; Each thing in nature makes his heart its pulse. Who would aspire to wear the laurel crown?-- It is a crown of thorns! [Sinks back upon chair.]