"André Chénier, the original of whatever is truest to nature and genuine passion, in the modern poetry of France, died by the guillotine, July 27, 1794. In ascending the scaffold, he cried, 'To die so young!' 'And there was something here!' he added, striking his forehead, not in the fear of death, but the despair of genius!"—See Thiers, vol. iv. p. 83.
Within the prison's dreary girth,
The dismal night, before
That morn on which the dungeon Earth
Shall wall the soul no more,
There stood serenest images
Where doomèd Genius lay,
The ever young Uranides
Around the Child of Clay.
On blacken'd walls and rugged floors
Shone cheerful, thro' the night,
The stars—like beacons from the shores
Of the still Infinite.
From Ida to the Poet's cell
The Pain-beguilers stole;
Apollo tuned his silver shell
And Hebè brimm'd the bowl.
To grace those walls he needed nought
That tint or stone bestows;
Creation kindled from his thought:
He call'd—and gods arose.
The visions Poets only know
Upon the captive smiled,
As bright within those walls of woe
As on the sunlit child;
He saw the nameless, glorious things
Which youthful dreamers see,
When Fancy first with murmurous wings
O'ershadows bards to be;
Those forms to life spiritual given
By high creative hymn;
From music born—as from their heaven
Are born the Seraphim.[C]
Forgetful of the coming day,
Upon the dungeon floor
He sate to count, poor child of clay,
The wealth of genius o'er;