When old Timotheus struck the vocal string,
Ambition’s fury fir’d the Grecian king: 
Unbounded projects lab’ring in his mind,
He pants for room, in one poor world confin’d. 
Thus wak’d to rage, by musick’s dreadful pow’r,
He bids the sword destroy, the flame devour. 
Had Stella’s gentle touches mov’d the lyre,
Soon had the monarch felt a nobler fire;
No more delighted with destructive war,
Ambitious only now to please the fair,
Resign’d his thirst of empire to her charms,
And found a thousand worlds in Stella’s arms.

[a] These lines, which have been communicated by Dr. Turton, son to Mrs.
    Turton, the lady to whom they are addressed by her maiden name of
    Hickman, must have been written, at least, as early as 1734, as that
    was the year of her marriage:  at how much earlier a period of Dr.
    Johnson’s life they might have been written, is not known.

PARAPHRASE OF PROVERBS, CHAP.  VI.  VERSES 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard[a].”

Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes,
Observe her labours, sluggard, and be wise: 
No stern command, no monitory voice,
Prescribes her duties, or directs her choice;
Yet, timely provident, she hastes away,
To snatch the blessings of the plenteous day;
When fruitful summer loads the teeming plain,
She crops the harvest, and she stores the grain. 
How long shall sloth usurp thy useless hours,
Unnerve thy vigour, and enchain thy pow’rs;
While artful shades thy downy couch inclose,
And soft solicitation courts repose? 
Amidst the drowsy charms of dull delight,
Year chases year with unremitted flight,
Till want now following, fraudulent and slow,
Shall spring to seize thee like an ambush’d foe.

[a] First printed in Mrs. Williams’s Miscellanies.

HORACE, LIB.  IV.  ODE VII.  TRANSLATED.

The snow, dissolv’d, no more is seen,
The fields and woods, behold! are green;
The changing year renews the plain,
The rivers know their banks again;
The sprightly nymph and naked grace
The mazy dance together trace;
The changing year’s successive plan
Proclaims mortality to man;
Rough winter’s blasts to spring give way,
Spring yields to summer’s sov’reign ray;
Then summer sinks in autumn’s reign,
And winter chills the world again;
Her losses soon the moon supplies,
But wretched man, when once he lies
Where Priam and his sons are laid,
Is nought but ashes and a shade. 
Who knows if Jove, who counts our score,
Will toss us in a morning more? 
What with your friend you nobly share,
At least you rescue from your heir. 
Not you, Torquatus, boast of Rome,
When Minos once has fixed your doom,
Or eloquence, or splendid birth,
Or virtue, shall restore to earth. 
Hippolytus, unjustly slain,
Diana calls to life in vain;
Nor can the might of Theseus rend
The chains of hell that hold his friend. 
Nov. 1784.