Know Johnson? Why he scoffs or storms at me Like some great dancing bear. St. Vitus' dance And scrofula have marked him. What a lance, His sparkling wit! His whims! A thirst for tea That seemed insatiable. Affinity For fish-sauce and veal pie with plums. A chance To treasure scraps of orange peel. Enhance The picture with contortions, grunts, and see Him: his rolling walk, his trick of touching posts As he passed by; his palsied shaking head; His half-closed eyes and hands moved up and down; Side pockets like a brief-case. Reynolds fed Our thirst for portraits, etchings @3his@1 renown. Of Johnson, there is clamorous dispute: "Tread lightly lest you wake a sleeping bear", Said Soame Jenyns, known to brave his lair; "A Christian and a scholar but a brute, And yet religion's ardentest recruit; The tide of infidelity he stemmed, And turned all literature against it, "hemmed The ragged edge of diction; Cowper's lute Rang to his praise; a sage by all allowed, Whose prose was "eloquence by wisdom taught; Whom to have bred may well make England proud." "The charm of literature," so Smollett thought; "A Jacobite," said Walpole; Carlyle vowed: "A man whose praise is neither scorned nor bought." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MASTER'S TOUCH by HORATIO (HORATIUS) BONAR TO PRIMROSES FILLED WITH MORNING DEW by ROBERT HERRICK DEATH'S VALLEY by WALT WHITMAN THE LAST MAN: A DREAM by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES PARADISE by CHARLES GRANGER BLANDEN |