Directress of the brave and just[e],
O! guide us through life's darksome way!
And let the tortures of mistrust
On selfish bosoms only prey.
Nor shall thine ardours cease to glow[f],
When souls to blissful climes remove:
What rais'd our virtue here below,
Shall aid our happiness above.
[a] This ode originally appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1743.
See Boswell's Life of Johnson, under that year. It was afterwards
printed in Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies, in 1766, with several
variations, which are pointed out, below.—J.B.
Parent of rage and hot desires.—Mrs. W.
[c] Inflames alike with equal fires.
[d] In vain for thee the monarch sighs.
[e] This stanza is omitted in Mrs. William's Miscellanies, and instead
of it, we have the following, which may be suspected, from internal
evidence, not to have been Johnson's:
When virtues, kindred virtues meet,
And sister-souls together join,
Thy pleasures permanent, as great,
Are all transporting—all divine.
[f] O! shall thy flames then cease to glow.
ON SEEING A BUST OF MRS. MONTAGUE.
Had this fair figure, which this frame displays,
Adorn'd in Roman time the brightest days,
In every dome, in every sacred place,
Her statue would have breath'd an added grace,
And on its basis would have been enroll'd,
"This is Minerva, cast in virtue's mould."
IMPROVISO ON A YOUNG HEIR'S COMING OF AGE
Long expected one-and-twenty,
Ling'ring year, at length is flown;
Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty,
Great——, are now your own.
Loosen'd from the minor's tether,
Free to mortgage or to sell;
Wild as wind, and light as feather,
Bid the sons of thrift farewell.