Page:Boswell - Life of Johnson.djvu/94

60 Two tender kids, the hopes of all the flock. Had we not been perverse and careless grown, This dire event by omens was foreshown; Our trees were blasted by the thunder stroke, And left-hand crows, from an old hollow oak, Foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak.

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's 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.

Clouds do not always veil the skies.
 * Nor showers immerse the verdant plain;

Nor do the billows always rise.
 * Or storms afflict the ruffled nain. Nor