Parody Contest Poems: Thomas Chatterton to Miss Eleanor Hoyland, by Andre Demers

Andre Demers is a poet and fictionist from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. He enjoys reading long poems for the Short Poetry Collection on Librivox.  

Thomas Chatterton to Miss Eleanor Hoyland

Hygeia bless thee, Eleanor of Charlestown,

And Juno bring thee children and a crown!

This letter never can be sent to thee,

O'er the Atlantic Ocean bearing glee, 

Natheless to you I would the truth confess, 

If Fancy bade, and I knew your address; 

But I can never ask it from my friend, 

Because I keep his secrets to the end.

I write because the thoughts of my poor heart 

I must indite to thee with brighter art

Than I have sent under another name, 

A friend's, unalterably dear. Not Fame

Is dearer than Friendship to me. So we lied, 

My joy in it so ardent that I cried,

Because my heav'nly Muse's lightning flash

Bade her lone Bard smite sudden song. 'Twas trash, 

The verses Baker must have copied out

In his best script. May there have been no doubt 

That they were his! He handed me a lyre,

And I drank of his happiness and desire. 

Not I but Love was author of those lays; 

We were the looking glasses for its rays 

To dance between; I never saw thy face, 

But his was my own certainty its grace 

Was great, and to be talked of overseas, 

With gentle modesty, naught of flatteries,

Like thy bouquet. What wretched obsequies. 

'Tis just as well thy fair and unknown form 

Could bid Imagination to perform,

And paint a nymph more beautiful than Truth 

Can give to light! You know no fading youth, 

And live in the ideal and in my dreams,

In all he said and captured of thy gleams. 

There was a damsel's company I sought,

Then when she married a friend that came to naught. 

Those sparks, not flames, might be some twenty-three,

But still I love Love though love loves not me.

Perhaps by Melancholy I was led

To seek vicarious pleasure. I felt dead, 

And found life in the service of my friend;

Prithee, my Hoyland, blame not what I've penned, 

And blame not him who asked to wear my verse, 

For we are honourable, if perverse

In this one harmless way: we help our own. 

Madness and Genius live together sewn; 

Love is the thread and needle of their bond, 

And I will be their poet-priest! Beyond

The grave I'll find forgiveness of my lies, 

Which I let slip, compell'd to sermonize

To none but God of nameless Glory's prize.