Horace: Book IV. Ode 7
The snow dissolv'd, no more is seen;
The fields and woods, behold! are green;
The changing year renews the plain,
The rivers know their banks again;
The sprightly nymph and naked grace
The mazy dance together trace.
The changing year's successive plan
Proclaims mortality to man.
Rough winter's blasts to spring give way,
Spring yields to summer's sovereign ray;
Then summer sinks in autumn's reign,
And winter chills the world again:
Her losses soon the moon supplies,
But wretched man, when once he lies
Where Priam and his sons are laid,
Is nought but ashes and a shade.
Who knows if Jove, who counts our score,
Will toss us in a morning more?
What with your friend you nobly share,
At least, you rescue from your heir.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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Summer
O Phoebus! down the western sky,
Far hence diffuse thy burning ray,
Thy light to distant worlds supply,
And wake them to the cares of day.
Come, gentle Eve, the friend of care,
Come, Cynthia, lovely queen of night!
Refresh me with a cooling breeze,
And cheer me with a lambent light.
Lay me, where o'er the verdant ground
Her living carpet Nature spreads;
Where the green bower with roses crown'd,
In showers its fragrant foliage spreads.
Improve the peaceful hour with wine,
Let music die along the grove;
Around the bowl let myrtles twine,
And every strain be tuned to love.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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The Vanity of Wealth
No more thus brooding o'er yon heap,
With avarice painful vigils keep:
Still unenjoy'd the present store,
Still endless sighs are breathed for more.
O! quit the shadow, catch the prize,
Which not all India's treasure buys!
To purchase with heaven has gold the power?
Can gold remove the mortal hour?
In life can love be bought with gold?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold?
No! - all that's worth a wish - a thought,
Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought,
Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind,
Let noble views engage thy mind.
With science tread the wondrous way,
Or learn the Muses' moral lay;
In social hours indulge thy soul,
Where mirth and temperance mix the bowl;
To virtuous love resign thy breast,
And be, by blessing beauty, - bless'd.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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Inspiration
LIFE of Ages, richly poured,
Love of God, unspent and free,
Flowing in the Prophet’s word
And the People’s liberty!
Never was to chosen race
That unstinted tide confined;
Thine is every time and place,
Fountain sweet of heart and mind!
Secret of the morning stars,
Motion of the oldest hours,
Pledge through elemental wars
Of the coming spirit’s powers!
Rolling planet, flaming sun,
Stand in nobler man complete;
Prescient laws Thine errands run,
Frame the shrine for Godhead meet.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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On The Death Of Mr. Robert Levet, A Practiser In Physic
CONDEMN'D to Hope's delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts or slow decline
Our social comforts drop away.
Well tried through many a varying year,
See Levet to the grave descend,
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.
Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise and coarsely kind;
Nor, letter'd Arrogance, deny
Thy praise to merit unrefined.
When fainting nature call'd for aid,
And hov'ring death prepared the blow,
His vig'rous remedy display'd
The power of art without the show.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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Spring
Stern Winter now, by Spring repress'd
Forbears the long-continued strife;
And Nature, on her naked breast,
Delights to catch the gales of life.
Now o'er the rural kingdom roves,
Soft pleasures with her laughing train,
Love warbles in the vocal groves,
And vegetation plants the plain.
Unhappy! whom to beds of pain
Arthritic tyranny consigns;
Whom smiling Nature courts in vain,
Though rapture sings and beauty shines.
Yet though my limbs disease invades,
Her wings imagination tries,
And bears me to the peaceful shades,
Where ---- 's humble turrets rise.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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Winter
No more the morn with tepid rays
Unfolds the flower of various hue;
Noon spreads no more the genial blaze,
Nor gentle eve distills the dew.
The lingering hours prolong the night,
Usurping darkness shares the day;
Her mists restrain the force of light,
And Phoebus holds a doubtful sway.
By gloomy twilight half revealed,
With sighs we view the hoary hill,
The leafless wood, the naked field,
The snow-topp'd cot, the frozen rill.
No music warbles through the grove,
No vivid colours paint the plain;
No more with devious steps I rove
Through verdant paths, now sought in vain.
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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Part of the Dialogue Between Hector and Andromache
She ceas'd; then godlike Hector answer'd kind -
(His various plumage sporting in the wind)
'That post and all the rest shall be my care;
But shall I then forsake the unfinish'd war?
How would the Trojans brand great Hector's name!
And one base action sully all my fame,
Acquired by wounds, and battles bravely fought!
Oh! how my soul abhors so mean a thought.
Long have I learnt to slight this feeble breath,
And view with cheerful eyes approaching death.
The inexorable sisters have decreed
That Priam's house and Priam's self shall bleed:
The day shall come, in which proud Troy shall yield,
And spread its smoking ruins o'er the field.
Yet Hecuba's, nor Priam's hoary age,
Whose blood shall quench some Grecian's thirsty rage;
Their souls dismiss'd through many a ghastly wound,
Can in my bosom half that grief create,
As the sad thought of your impending fate:
When some proud Grecian dame shall tasks impose,
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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Anacreon: Ode 9
Lovely courier of the sky,
Whence and whither dost thou fly?
Scattering, as thy pinions play,
Liquid fragrance all the way:
Is it business? is it love?
Tell me, tell me, gentle dove.
'Soft Anacreon's vows I bear,
Vows to Myrtale the fair;
Graced with all that charms the heart,
Blushing nature, smiling art.
Venus, courted by an ode,
On the bard her dove bestow'd:
Vested with a master's right,
Now Anacreon rules my flight;
His the letters that you see,
Weighty charge, consign'd to me:
Think not yet my service hard,
Joyless task without reward;
Smiling at my master's gates,
Freedom my return awaits;
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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To Miss --,
{On her playing upon the harpsichord in
a room hung with flower-pieces of her own painting}.
When Stella strikes the tuneful string
In scenes of imitated Spring,
Where beauty lavishes her powers
On beds of never-fading flowers,
And pleasure propagates around
Each charm of modulated sound;
Ah! think not in the dangerous hour,
The nymph fictitious as the flower;
But shun, rash youth, the gay alcove,
Nor tempt the snares of wily love.
When charms thus press on every sense,
What thought of flight or of defence?
Deceitful hope, and vain desire,
For ever flutter o'er her lyre,
Delighting as the youth draws nigh,
To point the glances of her eye,
And forming with unerring art
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poem by Samuel Johnson
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