To a Young Lady, on Her Birthday
This tributary verse receive, my fair,
Warm with an ardent lover's fondest prayer,
May this returning day for ever find
Thy form more lovely, more adorn'd thy mind;
All pains, all cares, may favouring heaven remove,
All but the sweet solicitudes of love!
May powerful nature join with grateful art,
To point each glance, and force it to the heart!
O then! when conquer'd crowds confess thy sway,
When even proud wealth and prouder wit obey,
My fair, be mindful of the mighty trust,
Alas! 'tis hard for beauty to be just.
Those sovereign charms with strictest care employ;
Nor give the generous pain, the worthless joy;
With his own form acquaint the forward fool,
Shown in the mimic glass of ridicule:
Teach mimic censure her own faults to find,
No more let coquettes to themselves be blind,
So shall Belinda's charms improve mankind.
poem by Samuel Johnson
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Friendship
Friendship! peculiar boon of Heaven,
The noble mind's delight and pride,
To men and angels only given,
To all the lower world denied.
While love, unknown among the bless'd,
Parent of thousand wild desires,
The savage and the human breast
Torments alike with raging fires.
With bright, but oft destructive gleam,
Alike o'er all his lightnings fly,
Thy lambent glories only beam
Around the favourites of the sky.
Thy gentle flows of guiltless joys
On fools and villains ne'er descend;
In vain for thee the tyrant sighs,
And hugs a flatterer for a friend.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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To Miss Hickman, Playing the Spinet
Bright Stella, form'd for universal reign,
Too well you know to keep the slaves you gain;
When in your eyes resistless lightnings play,
Awed into love our conquer'd hearts obey,
And yield reluctant to despotic sway;
But when your music soothes the raging pain,
We bid propitious heaven prolong your reign,
We bless the tyrant, and we hug the chain.
When old Timotheus struck the vocal string,
Ambition's fury fired the Grecian king:
Unbounded projects labouring in his mind,
He pants for room in one poor world confined.
Thus waked to rage by music's dreadful power,
He bids the sword destroy, the flame devour.
Had Stella's gentle touches moved the lyre,
Soon had the monarch felt the nobler fire:
No more delighted with destructive war,
Ambitious only now to please the fair;
Resign'd his thirst of empire to her charms,
And found a thousand worlds in Stella's arms.
poem by Samuel Johnson
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Horace: Book 1, Ode 22
The man, my friend, whose conscious heart
With virtue's sacred ardour glows,
Nor taints with death the envenom'd dart,
Nor needs the guard of Moorish bows:
Though Scythia's icy cliffs he treads,
Or horrid Afric's faithless sands;
Or where the fam'd Hydaspes spreads
His liquid wealth o'er barbarous lands.
For while by Chloe's image charm'd,
Too far in Sabine woods I stray'd;
Me singing, careless and unarm'd,
A grisly wolf surprised, and fled.
No savage more portentous stain'd
Apulia's spacious wilds with gore;
None fiercer Juba's thirsty land,
Dire nurse of raging lions, bore.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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Horace: Book 1, Ode 22
The man, my friend, whose conscious heart
With virtue's sacred ardour glows,
Nor taints with death the envenom'd dart,
Nor needs the guard of Moorish bows:
Though Scythia's icy cliffs he treads,
Or horrid Afric's faithless sands;
Or where the fam'd Hydaspes spreads
His liquid wealth o'er barbarous lands.
For while by Chloe's image charm'd,
Too far in Sabine woods I stray'd;
Me singing, careless and unarm'd,
A grisly wolf surprised, and fled.
No savage more portentous stain'd
Apulia's spacious wilds with gore;
None fiercer Juba's thirsty land,
Dire nurse of raging lions, bore.
[...] Read more
poem by Samuel Johnson
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Parody of a Translation from the Medea of Euripides
Ere shall they not, who resolute explore
Times gloomy backward with judicious eyes;
And scanning right the practice of yore,
Shall deem our hoar progenitors unwise.
They to the dome where smoke with curling play
Announced the dinner to the regions round,
Summon'd the singer blithe, and harper gay,
And aided wine with dulcet-streaming sound.
The better use of notes, or sweet or shrill,
By quivering string or modulated wind;
Trumpet or lyre - to their harsh bosoms chill
Admission ne'er had sought, or could not find.
Oh! send them to the sullen mansions dun,
Her baleful eyes where sorrow rolls around;
Where gloom-enamour'd mischief loves to dwell
And murder, all blood-bolter'd, schemes the wound.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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The Natural Beauty
To Stella:
Whether Stella's eyes are found
Fix'd on earth or glancing round,
If her face with pleasure glow,
If she sigh at others' woe,
If her easy air express
Conscious worth, or soft distress,
Stella's eyes and air and face
Charm with undiminish'd grace
If on her we see display'd
Pendent gems, and rich brocade,
If her chintz with less expense
Flows in easy negligence;
Still she lights the conscious flame,
Still her charms appear the same;
If she strikes the vocal strings,
If she's silent, speaks, or sings,
If she sit, or if she move,
Still we love, and still approve.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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A Short Song of Congratulation
LONG-EXPECTED one and twenty
Ling'ring year at last has flown,
Pomp and pleasure, pride and plenty
Great Sir John, are all your own.
Loosen'd from the minor's tether,
Free to mortgage or to sell,
Wild as wind, and light as feather
Bid the slaves of thrift farewell.
Call the Bettys, Kates, and Jenneys
Ev'ry name that laughs at care,
Lavish of your Grandsire's guineas,
Show the spirit of an heir.
All that prey on vice and folly
Joy to see their quarry fly,
Here the gamester light and jolly
There the lender grave and sly.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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One And Twenty
LONG-EXPECTED one and twenty
Ling'ring year at last has flown,
Pomp and pleasure, pride and plenty
Great Sir John, are all your own.
Loosen'd from the minor's tether,
Free to mortgage or to sell,
Wild as wind, and light as feather
Bid the slaves of thrift farewell.
Call the Bettys, Kates, and Jenneys
Ev'ry name that laughs at care,
Lavish of your Grandsire's guineas,
Show the spirit of an heir.
All that prey on vice and folly
Joy to see their quarry fly,
Here the gamester light and jolly
There the lender grave and sly.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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On the Death of Stephen Grey, F.R.S.
The Electrician
Long hast thou borne the burden of the day,
Thy task is ended, venerable Grey!
No more shall art thy dexterous hand require,
To break the sleep of elemental fire:
To rouse the powers that actuate Nature's frame,
The momentaneous shock, th' electric flame;
The flame, which at first, weak pupil of thy lore,
I saw, condemn'd, alas! to see no more.
Now, hoary sage, pursue thy happy flight
With swifter motion, haste to purer light.
Where Bacon waits with Newton and with Boyle,
To hail thy genius and applaud thy toil,
Where intuition breathes through time and space,
And mocks experiment's successive race;
See tardy science toil at Nature's laws,
And wonders how th' effect obscures the cause.
Yet not to deep research or happy guess
Is view'd the life of hope, the death of peace;
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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