THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON - All 6 Volumes in One Edition. James Boswell

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       And left-hand crows, from an old hollow oak, )

       Foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak. )

      Translation of HORACE. Book I. Ode xxii.

      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 Africk’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 grizly wolf surprised, and fled.

      No savage more portentous stain’d

       Apulia’s spacious wilds with gore;

       No fiercer Juba’s thirsty land,

       Dire nurse of raging lions, bore.

      Place me where no soft summer gale

       Among the quivering branches sighs;

       Where clouds condens’d for ever veil

       With horrid gloom the frowning skies:

      Place me beneath the burning line,

       A clime deny’d to human race;

       I’ll sing of Chloe’s charms divine,

       Her heav’nly voice, and beauteous face.

      Translation of HORACE. Book II. Ode ix.

      Clouds do not always veil the skies,

       Nor showers immerse the verdant plain;

       Nor do the billows always rise,

       Or storms afflict the ruffled main.

      Nor, Valgius, on th’ Armenian shores

       Do the chain’d waters always freeze;

       Not always furious Boreas roars,

       Or bends with violent force the trees.

      But you are ever drown’d in tears,

       For Mystes dead you ever mourn;

       No setting Sol can ease your care,

       But finds you sad at his return.

      The wise experienc’d Grecian sage

       Mourn’d not Antilochus so long;

       Nor did King Priam’s hoary age

       So much lament his slaughter’d son.

      Leave off, at length, these woman’s sighs,

       Augustus’ numerous trophies sing;

       Repeat that prince’s victories,

       To whom all nations tribute bring.

      Niphates rolls an humbler wave,

       At length the undaunted Scythian yields,

       Content to live the Roman’s slave,

       And scarce forsakes his native fields.

      Translation of part of the Dialogue between HECTOR and ANDROMACHE; from the Sixth Book of HOMER’S ILIAD.

      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 unfinished 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 since I learn’d to slight this fleeting 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 will 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,

       Nor my brave brothers, that have bit the ground,

       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,

       Mimick your tears, and ridicule your woes;

       Beneath Hyperia’s waters shall you sweat,

       And, fainting, scarce support the liquid weight:

       Then shall some Argive loud insulting cry,

       Behold the wife of Hector, guard of Troy!

       Tears, at my name, shall drown those beauteous eyes,

       And that fair bosom heave with rising sighs!

       Before that day, by some brave hero’s hand

       May I lie slain, and spurn the bloody sand.

      To a YOUNG LADY on her BIRTH-DAY[162].

      This tributary verse receive my fair,

       Warm with an ardent lover’s fondest pray’r.

       May this returning day for ever find

       Thy form more lovely, more adorn’d thy mind;

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