Thomas Chatterton was born in Bristol, England, Nov. 20, 1752. He ended his life by taking arsenic in a lodging room in London, Aug. 24, 1770. He received a meager education at a charity school in his native city, began to write verses when he was 12 years old, and at 15 was apprenticed to a Bristol attorney. He went to London in April, 1770. He tried to make a living by writing for the newspapers, but failed, and, reduced to extreme destitution, committed suicide. His Rowley poems, which he said were translations from the writings of a monk of the fifteenth century, have been the subject of much discussion. Besides those he wrote “The Tragedy of Aella,” “The Battle of Hastings,” “The Tournament,” and several shorter poems. His correspondence with Horace Walpole proved a bitter experience for the precocious poet, who wrote some savage lines on that nobleman author.

O God, whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom globe surveys,
To thee, my only rock, I fly,
Thy mercy in thy justice praise.

The mystic mazes of thy will,
The shadows of celestial light,
Are past the power of human skill;
But what the Eternal acts is right.

Oh, teach me in the trying hour,
When anguish swells the dewy tear,
To still my sorrows, own thy power,
Thy goodness love, thy justice fear.

If in this bosom aught but thee
Encroaching sought a boundless sway,
Omniscience could the danger see,
And Mercy look the cause away.

Then why, my soul, dost thou complain,
Why drooping seek the dark recess?
Shake off the melancholy chain,
For God created all to bless.

But ah! my breast is human still;
The rising sigh, the falling tear,
My languid vitals’ feeble rill,
The sickness of my soul declare.

But yet, with fortitude resigned,
I’ll thank the inflicter of the blow;
Forbid the sigh, compose my mind,
Nor let the gush of misery flow.

The gloomy mantle of the night,
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light,
Which God, my east, my sun, reveals.