The works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 5

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Page 94 - Ordain'd by thee ; and this delicious place For us too large, where thy abundance wants Partakers, and uncropt falls to the ground. But thou hast promis'd from us two a race To fill the earth, who shall with us extol Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake, And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.
Page 136 - The sound must seem an echo to the sense : Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows ; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar: When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow : Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Page 106 - Behind him cast ; the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views, At evening, from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
Page 411 - Who dares think one thing, and another tell, My heart detests him as the gates of hell.
Page 120 - Olympian hill I soar, Above the flight of Pegasean wing ! The meaning, not the name, I call ; for thou Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top Of old Olympus dwell'st ; but...
Page 119 - Adam, well may we labour still to dress This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower, Our pleasant task enjoin'd ; but, till more hands Aid us, the work under our labour grows, Luxurious by restraint ; what we by day Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind, One night or two with wanton growth derides, Tending to wild.
Page 60 - Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them ; for this is the law and the prophets.
Page 201 - Pleasure, commonly subsided by sensible degrees, contended long with the encroaching waters, and harassed themselves by labours that scarce Hope herself could flatter with success. As I was looking upon the various fate of the multitude about me, I was suddenly alarmed with an admonition from some unknown power : ' Gaze not idly upon others when thou thyself art sinking. Whence is this thoughtless tranquillity, when thou and they are equally endangered ? ' I looked, and seeing the gulf of Intemperance...
Page 118 - Urania, and fit audience find, though few. But drive far off the barbarous dissonance Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian Bard In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears To rapture, till the savage clamour drowned Both harp and voice ; nor could the Muse defend Her son.
Page 93 - Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile Of harlots — loveless, joyless, unendeared, Casual fruition; nor in court amours, Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball, Or serenate, which the starved lover sings To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.

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