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

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       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 conquered crouds confess thy sway,

       When ev’n 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,

       Shewn in the faithful glass of ridicule;

       Teach mimick censure her own faults to find, )

       No more let coquettes to themselves be blind, )

       So shall Belinda’s charms improve mankind. )

      THE YOUNG AUTHOUR[163].

      When first the peasant, long inclin’d to roam,

       Forsakes his rural sports and peaceful home,

       Pleas’d with the scene the smiling ocean yields,

       He scorns the verdant meads and flow’ry fields:

       Then dances jocund o’er the watery way,

       While the breeze whispers, and the streamers play:

       Unbounded prospects in his bosom roll,

       And future millions lift his rising soul;

       In blissful dreams he digs the golden mine,

       And raptur’d sees the new-found ruby shine.

       Joys insincere! thick clouds invade the skies,

       Loud roar the billows, high the waves arise;

       Sick’ning with fear, he longs to view the shore,

       And vows to trust the faithless deep no more.

       So the young Authour, panting after fame,

       And the long honours of a lasting name,

       Entrusts his happiness to human kind,

       More false, more cruel, than the seas or wind.

       ‘Toil on, dull croud, in extacies he cries,

       For wealth or title, perishable prize;

       While I those transitory blessings scorn,

       Secure of praise from ages yet unborn.’

       This thought once form’d, all council comes too late,

       He flies to press, and hurries on his fate;

       Swiftly he sees the imagin’d laurels spread,

       And feels the unfading wreath surround his head.

       Warn’d by another’s fate, vain youth be wise,

       Those dreams were Settle’s[164] once, and Ogilby’s[165]:

       The pamphlet spreads, incessant hisses rise,

       To some retreat the baffled writer flies;

       Where no sour criticks snarl, no sneers molest,

       Safe from the tart lampoon, and stinging jest;

       There begs of heaven a less distinguish’d lot,

       Glad to be hid, and proud to be forgot.

      EPILOGUE, intended to have been spoken by a LADY who was to personate the Ghost of HERMIONE[166].

      Ye blooming train, who give despair or joy,

       Bless with a smile, or with a frown destroy;

       In whose fair cheeks destructive Cupids wait,

       And with unerring shafts distribute fate;

       Whose snowy breasts, whose animated eyes,

       Each youth admires, though each admirer dies;

       Whilst you deride their pangs in barb’rous play, }

       Unpitying see them weep, and hear them pray, }

       And unrelenting sport ten thousand lives away; }

       For you, ye fair, I quit the gloomy plains;

       Where sable night in all her horrour reigns;

       No fragrant bowers, no delightful glades,

       Receive the unhappy ghosts of scornful maids.

       For kind, for tender nymphs the myrtle blooms,

       And weaves her bending boughs in pleasing glooms:

       Perennial roses deck each purple vale,

       And scents ambrosial breathe in every gale:

       Far hence are banish’d vapours, spleen, and tears,

       Tea, scandal, ivory teeth, and languid airs:

       No pug, nor favourite Cupid there enjoys

       The balmy kiss, for which poor Thyrsis dies;

       Form’d to delight, they use no foreign arms,

       Nor torturing whalebones pinch them into charms;

       No conscious blushes there their cheeks inflame,

       For those who feel no guilt can know no shame;

       Unfaded still their former charms they shew,

       Around them pleasures wait, and joys for ever new.

       But cruel virgins meet severer fates;

       Expell’d and exil’d from the blissful seats,

       To dismal realms, and regions void of peace,

       Where furies ever howl, and serpents hiss.

       O’er the sad plains perpetual tempests sigh,

       And pois’nous vapours, black’ning all the sky,

       With livid hue the fairest face o’ercast,

       And every beauty withers at the blast:

       Where e’er they fly their lover’s ghosts pursue,

       Inflicting СКАЧАТЬ