• Ode, Supposed to be Written on the Marriage of a Friend

    Thou magic lyre, whose fascinating sound

       Seduc'd the savage monsters from their cave,

    Drew rocks and trees, and forms uncouth around,

       And bade wild Hebrus hush his list'ning wave;

    No more thy undulating warblings flow

    O'er Thracian wilds of everlasting snow!


    Awake to sweeter sounds, thou...

  • Poem Written to his Jailer

    O Robert, Let us be fond

    Of Virtue! Virtues abound

    In every sort of good.

    Let virtue be our soul’s food!

  • Poems written in jail


    I must

    Speak of God in whom
    I trust.

    In him I have room
    To hope.
    ...

  • To Euthalia. Written in the year 1728.

       BURNING with love, tormented with despair,

    Unable to forget or ease his care;

    In vain each practis'd art Alexis tries;

    In vain to books, to wine or women flies;

    Each brings Euthalia's image to his eyes.

    In Locke's or Newton's page her learning glows;
    Dryden the...

  • To Miss H-and At Bath. Written extempore in the pump-room, 1742.

      SOON shall these bounteous springs thy wish bestow,

    Soon in each feature sprightly health shall glow;

    Thy eyes regain their fire, thy limbs their grace,

    And roses join the lilies in thy face.

    But say, sweet maid, what waters can remove

    The pangs of cold despair, of hopeless love?

    The deadly star which...

  • To The Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole, (Now Earl Of Orford). Written in the Year 1730

       SIR,

       WHILE at the helm of state you ride,

    Our nation's envy, and its pride;

    While foreign courts with wonder gaze,

    And curse those councils which they praise;

    Would you not wonder, sir, to view

    Your bard a greater man than you?

    Which that he is, you cannot doubt,

    When...

  • Verses Supposed To Be Written by Alexander Selkirk

    I am monarch of all I survey,

        My right there is none to dispute;

    From the center all round to the sea

        I am lord of the fowl and the brute.


    O solitude! where are the charms

        That sages have seen in thy face?

    Better dwell in the midst of alarms

        Than reign in this horrible...

  • Verses Written at Bath on Finding the Heel of a Shoe

    Fortune! I thank thee: gentle Goddess! thanks!

    Not that my muse, tho' bashful, shall deny

    She would have thank'd thee rather, hadst thou cast

    A treasure in her way; for neither meed

    Of early breakfast, to dispel the fumes

    And bowel-raking pains of emptiness,

    Nor noontide feast, nor ev'ning's cool...

  • Written at Tivoli Falls

                Sweet Tivoli! upon thy grassy side,

                    Whene'er I linger through the summer day,

                And the soft music of thy silvery tide

                    So sweetly wiles the lagging hours away,

            I cannot deem but thou are e'en as fair

            As that Italian vale whose name thy waters bear...

  • Written Extempore On A Halfpenny, Which a young lady gave a beggar, and the author redeemed for half-a-crown

       DEAR little, pretty, fav'rite ore,

    That once increas'd Gloriana's store;

    That lay within her bosom bless'd,

    Gods might have envied thee thy nest.

    I've read, imperial Jove of old

    For love transform'd himself to gold:

    And why, for a more lovely lass,

    May he not now have...