Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray and Smollett

One and Twenty

1 Long-expected one-and-twenty,
      Lingering year, at length is flown:
    Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty,
      Great * * *, are now your own.

2 Loosen’d from the minor’s tether,
      Free to mortgage or to sell,
    Wild as wind, and light as feather,
      Bid the sons of thrift farewell.

3 Call the Betsies, Kates, and Jennies,
      All the names that banish care;
    Lavish of your grandsire’s guineas,
      Show the spirit of an heir.

4 All that prey on vice and folly
      Joy to see their quarry fly:
    There the gamester, light and jolly;
      There the lender, grave and sly.

5 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.

6 When the bonny blade carouses,
      Pockets full, and spirits high—
    What are acres? what are houses?
      Only dirt, or wet, or dry.

7 Should the guardian friend or mother
      Tell the woes of wilful waste:
    Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother,
      You can hang or drown at last.

¹ Supposed to be Percy.

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End of Johnson’s Poems