Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Samuel Johnson. 17091784450. One-and-Twenty
LONG-EXPECTED one-and-twenty, | |
Ling’ring year, at length is flown: | |
Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty, | |
Great . . . . . . ., are now your own. | |
Loosen’d from the minor’s tether, | 5 |
Free to mortgage or to sell, | |
Wild as wind, and light as feather, | |
Bid the sons of thrift farewell. | |
Call the Betsies, Kates, and Jennies, | |
All the names that banish care; | 10 |
Lavish of your grandsire’s guineas, | |
Show the spirit of an heir. | |
All that prey on vice and folly | |
Joy to see their quarry fly: | |
There the gamester, light and jolly, | 15 |
There the lender, grave and sly. | |
Wealth, my lad, was made to wander, | |
Let it wander as it will; | |
Call the jockey, call the pander, | |
Bid them come and take their fill. | 20 |
When the bonny blade carouses, | |
Pockets full, and spirits high— | |
What are acres? What are houses? | |
Only dirt, or wet or dry. | |
Should the guardian friend or mother | 25 |
Tell the woes of wilful waste, | |
Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother;— | |
You can hang or drown at last! |