Rowley poems is "Aella," "a tragycal enterlude or discoorseynge tragedie"
in 147 stanzas, and generally regarded as Chatterton's masterpiece.[20]
The scene of this tragedy is Bristol and the neighboring Watchet Mead;
the period, during the Danish invasions. The hero is the warden of
Bristol Castle.[21] While he is absent on a victorious campaign against
the Danes, his bride, Bertha, is decoyed from home by his treacherous
lieutenant, Celmond, who is about to ravish her in the forest, when he is
surprised and killed by a band of marauders. Meanwhile Aella has
returned home, and finding that his wife has fled, stabs himself
mortally. Bertha arrives in time to hear his dying speech and make the
necessary explanations, and then dies herself on the body of her lord.
It will be seen that the plot is sufficiently melodramatic; the
sentiments and dialogue are entirely modern, when translated out of
Rowleian into English. The verse is a modified form of the Spenserian, a
ten-line stanza which Mr. Skeat says is an invention of Chatterton and a
striking instance of his originality.[22] It answers very well in
descriptive passages and soliloquies; not so well in the "discoorseynge"
parts. As this is Chatterton's favorite stanza, in which "The Battle of
Hastings," "Goddwyn," "English Metamorphosis" and others of the Rowley
series are written, an example of it may be cited here, from "Aella."

_Scene_, Bristol. Celmond, _alone_.
The world is dark with night; the winds are still,
Faintly the moon her pallid light makes gleam;
The risen sprites the silent churchyard fill,
With elfin fairies joining in the dream;
The forest shineth with the silver leme;
Now may my love be sated in its treat;
Upon the brink of some swift running stream,
At the sweet banquet I will sweetly eat.