Friendship; An Ode

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Title:     Friendship; An Ode
Author: Samuel Johnson [More Titles by Johnson]

FRIENDSHIP; AN ODE[a]

Friendship, peculiar boon of heaven,
The noble mind's delight and pride,
To men and angels only given,
To all the lower world deny'd.

While love, unknown among the blest,
Parent of thousand wild desires[b],
The savage and the human breast
Torments alike with raging fires[c];

With bright, but oft destructive, gleam,
Alike, o'er all his lightnings fly;
Thy lambent glories only beam
Around the fav'rites of the sky.

Thy gentle flows of guiltless joys
On fools and villains ne'er descend;
In vain for thee the tyrant sighs[d],
And hugs a flatt'rer for a friend.

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.

NOTES:

[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. [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.

[The end]
Samuel Johnson's poem: Friendship; An Ode

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