 | Poems and Songs |  |
ON Mr. JOHNSON'S
Several Shipwracks.
He that has never yet acquainted beenWith cruel Chance, nor Vertue naked seen,
Strip'd from th' advantages (which Vices wear)
Of happy, plausible, successful, fair;
Nor learnt how long the lowring cloud may last,
Wherewith her beauteous face is overcast,
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And shines more bright, after the Storm is over;
To be inform'd, he need no further go,
Than this Divine Epitome of woe.
In Johnson's Life, and Writings he may find,
What Homer in his Odysses design'd,
A vertuous Man, by miserable fate,
Rendred ten thousand ways unfortunate;
Sometimes within a leaking Vessel tost,
All hopes of life, and the lov'd Shore quite lost,
While hidden Sands, and every greedy Wave,
With horror gap'd themselves into a Grave:
Sometimes upon a Rock with fury thrown,
Moaning himself, where none could hear his moan;
Sometimes cast out upon the barren sand,
Expos'd to th' mercy of a Barbarous Land:
Such was the Pious Johnson, till kind Heaven
A blessed End to all his toils had given:
To shew that vertuous men, though they appear
But Fortune's sport, are Providence's care.
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