Friendship: An Ode
Friendship, peculiar boon of heaven,The noble mind's delight and pride,To men and angels only given,To all the lower world deny'd.
While love, unknown among the blest,Parent of thousand wild desires,The savage and the human breastTorments alike with raging fires;
With bright, but oft destructive, gleam,Alike, o'er all his lightnings fly;Thy lambent glories only beamAround the fav'rites of the sky.
Thy gentle flows of guiltless joysOn fools and villains ne'er descend;In vain for thee the tyrant sighs,And hugs a flatt'rer for a friend.
Directress of the brave and just,O! guide us through life's darksome way!And let the tortures of mistrustOn selfish bosoms only prey.
Nor shall thine ardours cease to glow,When souls to blissful climes remove:What rais'd our virtue here below,Shall aid our happiness above.
Words in this poem
- boon n.
- A prayer or petition. [OE. bone, boin, a petition, fr. Icel. b; akin to Sw. & Dan. b, AS. b, and perh. to E. ban; but influenced by F. bon good, fr. L. bonus. Ban, Bounty.]
- lambent a.
- Playing on the surface; touching lightly; gliding over. [L. lambens, -enlis, p. pr. of lambere to lick; akin to lap. See Lap to drink by licking.]
- guiltless a.
- Free from guilt; innocent.
- directress n.
- A woman who directs. Bp. Hurd.
- darksome a.
- Dark; gloomy; obscure; shaded; cheerless.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- blissful a.
- Full of, characterized by, or causing, joy and felicity; happy in the highest degree.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Friendship: An Ode is in the public domain. This text is taken from Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 (The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes, 1825), Project Gutenberg ebook #10835; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Samuel Johnson, Friendship: An Ode, in Poems (1825), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10835, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-poems/friendship-an-ode.html, id L27172.
Form and metre
Friendship: An Ode is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 5 of its 6 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 2 ABAB blestA · desiresB · breastA · firesB
- 3 ABAB gleamA · flyB · beamA · skyB
- 4 ABAB joysA · descendB · sighsA · friendB
- 5 ABAB justA · wayB · mistrustA · preyB
- 6 ABAB glowA · removeB · belowA · aboveB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Friendship, peculiar boon of heaven, | 9 | /˘˘/˘··/˘ |
| The noble mind's delight and pride, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| To men and angels only given, | 9 | ···/˘/˘/˘ |
| To all the lower world deny'd. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| While love, unknown among the blest, | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Parent of thousand wild desires, | 9 | /˘·/˘·˘/˘ |
| The savage and the human breast | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Torments alike with raging fires; | 9 | /·˘/·/˘/˘ |
| With bright, but oft destructive, gleam, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Alike, o'er all his lightnings fly; | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| Thy lambent glories only beam | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Around the fav'rites of the sky. | 8 | ········ |
| Thy gentle flows of guiltless joys | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| On fools and villains ne'er descend; | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| In vain for thee the tyrant sighs, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And hugs a flatt'rer for a friend. | 8 | ········ |
| Directress of the brave and just, | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| O! guide us through life's darksome way! | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And let the tortures of mistrust | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| On selfish bosoms only prey. | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Nor shall thine ardours cease to glow, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| When souls to blissful climes remove: | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| What rais'd our virtue here below, | 8 | ··//˘··· |
| Shall aid our happiness above. | 8 | ··//˘˘·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.