"O Chatterton, that thou wert yet alive!
Sure thou would'st spread thy canvas to the gale,
And love with us the tinkling team to drive
O'er peaceful freedom's undivided dale;
And we at sober eve would round thee throng,
Hanging enraptured on thy stately song,
And greet with smiles the young-eyed poesy
All deftly masked as hoar antiquity. . .
Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream
Where Susquehannah pours his untamed stream;
And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side
Waves o'er the murmurs of his calmer tide,
Will raise a solemn cenotaph to thee,
Sweet harper of time-shrouded ministrelsy."

It might be hard to prove that the Rowley poems had very much to do with
giving shape to Coleridge's own poetic output. Doubtless, without them,
"Christabel," and "The Ancient Mariner," and "The Darke Ladye" would
still have been; and yet it is possible that they might not have been
just what they are. In "The Ancient Mariner" there is the ballad strain
of the "Reliques," but _plus_ something of Chatterton's. In such lines
as these:

"The bride hath paced into the hall
Red as a rose is she:
Nodding their heads before her, goes
The merry minstrelsy;"

or as these: