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
Torments alike with raging fires.
With bright, but oft destructive gleam,
Alike o'er all his lightnings fly,
Thy lambent glories only
Around the favourites of the sky.
Thy gentle flows of guiltless
On fools and villains ne'er descend;
In vain for thee the tyrant sighs,
And hugs a flatterer for a friend.
Directness of the brave and just,
Oh guide us through life's darksome way!
And let the tortures of
On selfish bosoms only prey.
Nor shall thine ardours cease to glow,
When souls to peaceful climes remove.
What raised our virtue here
Shall aid our happiness above.
Samuel Johnson
Other author posts
The Winters Walk
Behold, my fair, where'er we rove, What dreary prospects round us rise, The naked hill, the leafless grove, The hoary ground, the frowning skies
Epitaph on Sir Thomas Hanmer Bart
Thou who survey'st these walls with curious eye, Pause at this tomb where Hanmer's ashes lie; His various worth through varied life attend, And learn his virtues while thou mourn'st his end
On the Death of Dr Robert Levet
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
Parody of a Translation from the Medea of Euripides
Ere shall they not, who resolute Times gloomy backward with judicious eyes; And scanning right the practice of yore, Shall deem our hoar progenitors unwise
