The Romantic Spirit: The Triumph of Death- 2/5

This clip features the ending of Thomas Chatterton's "Last Verses" which read:

"Farewell, Bristolia's dingy piles of brick,
Lovers of mammon, worshippers of trick!
Ye spurned the boy who gave you antique lays,
And paid for learning with your empty praise.
Farewell, ye guzzling aldermanic fools,
By nature fitted for corruption's tools!
I go to where celestial anthems swell;
But you, when you depart, will sink to hell.
Farewell, my mother!-cease, my anguished soul,
Nor let distraction's billows o'er me roll!
Have mercy, Heaven! when here i cease to live,
And this last act of wretchedness forgive."

Also featured is an excerpt from Lord Byron's Play "Manfred" - Act III -Scene I

Abbot. Alas!
I gin to fear that thou art past all aid
From me and from my calling; yet so young, 155
I still would—
Man. Look on me! there is an order
Of mortals on the earth, who do become
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age,
Without the violence of warlike death; 160
Some perishing of pleasure, some of study,
Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness,
Some of disease, and some insanity,
And some of witherd or of broken hearts;
For this last is a malady which slays 165
More than are numberd in the lists of Fate,
Taking all shapes and bearing many names.
Look upon me! for even of all these things
Have I partaken; and of all these things,
One were enough; then wonder not that I 170
Am what I am, but that I ever was,
Or having been, that I am still on earth.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Keats
• Shelley
• Samuel
• Taylor
• Coleridge
• death
• suicide
• art
• poetry
• the
• grave
• skeleton
• mortality

[Pianoantics]

what a shame this is not in stereo as its coming through one side of the headphones on the left...I suppose I will have to accept this inconvenience as the Romantics had more problems than we can imagine.

[byronsfoot]

@Pianoantics Yes, it is a shame I couldn't get better quality audio of this - best to listen without headphones I suppose, but I hope you received some pleasure from it in its rough state. I believe things worth sharing, though they be frayed or broken, if they still carry their poetry - these are things worth sharing.

[longgone23]

I wonder about those psymptomes of extreme old age. Sounds pseudosceintific..

[byronsfoot]

The "symptoms of extreme old age" always made me scratch my head as well.

[luciano9009]

Chatterton's story has touched me, a likeness of dark despair. I shall versify those common feelings.

[orlandobabe]

I love this! narrating background story while hearing the poems, this is what I love going to school for. Lit, poem, English gothic stories and romance.

[cidseven]

Thankyou.

Some of the footage is absolutely excellent.

[steinbachvideo]

An excerpt from Byron's "Manfred" - Act III, Scene I.

[cidseven]

what is that footage about 4:20 into the movie?

[longgone23]

Yeah, I don't deny the possiblity of it, I just wonder how they could tell..