Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AS HE PASSED BY, by MARGARETTE BALL DICKSON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AS HE PASSED BY, by                    
First Line: Know johnson? Why he scoffs or storms at me
Last Line: "a man whose praise is neither scorned nor bought."
Subject(s): Portraits


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 his 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."





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