Classic Poem

WRITTEN BY CHATTERTON, TO A LADY IN BRISTOL .

T O use a worn-out simile,
From flower to flower the busy bee
With anxious labour flies,
Alike from scents which give distaste,
By Fancy as disgusting placed,
Repletes his useful thighs.

Nor does his vicious taste prefer
The fopling of some gay parterre,
The mimicry of art,
But round the meadow-violet dwells;
Nature, replenishing his cells,
Does ampler stores impart.

So I, a humble-dumble drone,
Anxious and restless when alone,
Seek comfort in the fair;
And featured up in tenfold brass,
A rhyming, staring, amorous ass,
To you address my prayer.

But ever in my love-lorn flights
Nature untouch'd by art delights—
Art ever gives disgust.
“Why?” says some priest of mystic thought;
The bard alone by nature taught
Is to that nature just.

But ask your orthodox divine,
If he perchance should read the line
Which fancy now inspires:
Will all his sermons, preaching, prayers,
His hell, his heaven, his solemn airs,
Quench nature's rising fires?

In natural religion free,
I to no other bow the knee,
Nature's the God I own:
Let priests of future torments tell,
Your anger is the only hell,
No other hell is known.

I steeled by destiny was born,
Well fenced against a woman's scorn,
Regardless of that hell;
I fired by burning planets came
From flaming hearts to catch a flame,
And bid the bosom swell.

Then catch the shadow of a heart,
I will not with the substance part,
Although that substance burn,
Till as a hostage you remit
Your heart, your sentiment, your wit,
To make a safe return.

A reverend cully-mully puff
May call this letter odious stuff,
With no Greek motto graced,
Whilst you, despising the poor strain,
“The dog's insufferably vain
To think to please my taste!”

This vanity, this impudence
Is all the merit, all the sense
Through which to fame I trod;
These (by the Trinity 'tis true)
Procure me friends and notice too,
And shall gain you, by G—d.