On A Beautiful Youth Struck Blind With Lightning

Sure 'twas by Providence design'd,
Rather in pity, than in hate,
That he should be, like Cupid, blind,
To save him from Narcissus' fate.

Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish novelist, playwright, and poet, best known for his novel 'The Vicar of Wakefield' (1766), his pastoral poem 'The Deserted Village' (1770), and his play 'She Stoops to Conquer' (1773). He was a versatile writer with works ranging from prose to poetry to drama and was a central figure in the literary circle known as the 'Club' alongside Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke. His writing often depicted rural life and he became an important part of 18th-century English literature.

Oliver Goldsmith

Threnodia Augustalis:

Oliver Goldsmith, Simple Poetry

Epilogue Intended To Have Been Spoken For 'She Stoops To Conquer'

Oliver Goldsmith, Simple Poetry

The Double Transformation - A Tale

Oliver Goldsmith, Simple Poetry

Epilogue For Mr. Lee Lewes

Oliver Goldsmith, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Love Is Blind

And can you tell me Love is blind
Because your faults he will not find,
Because the image that he sees
Is one of splendid mysteries?
And if he lack the power to look
On what he will, as on a book,
And read therein the heart of it,
Why are his ways with wonder lit?
Why think you he should bind his eyes
And hide the many-tinted skies,
But that he sees too well to trust
The shadows on an orb of dust?
For he hath vision keener far
Than poring Thoughts and Fancys are
An inward vision, full and clear
When night has flung her mantle sheer
Across the world we stumble through
In search of Truths evasive clue.
He looks, and straight there fall away
The fluttring rags of your array,
The far-fet gem, th indecent drape,
The pads that mar the p...

John Le Gay Brereton

Love And Folly. - From La Fontaine. (Translations.)

Love's worshippers alone can know
The thousand mysteries that are his;
His blazing torch, his twanging bow,
His blooming age are mysteries.
A charming science, but the day
Were all too short to con it o'er;
So take of me this little lay,
A sample of its boundless lore.

As once, beneath the fragrant shade
Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air,
The children, Love and Folly, played,
A quarrel rose betwixt the pair.
Love said the gods should do him right,
But Folly vowed to do it then,
And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight,
So hard he never saw again.

His lovely mother's grief was deep,
She called for vengeance on the deed;
A beauty does not vainly weep,
Nor coldly does a mother plead.
A shade came o'er the eternal bliss
That ...

William Cullen Bryant

Epitaph XVII. On Two Lovers Struck Dead By Lightning.[1]

When Eastern lovers feed the funeral fire,
On the same pile the faithful pair expire.
Here pitying Heaven that virtue mutual found,
And blasted both, that it might neither wound.
Hearts so sincere, the Almighty saw well pleased,
Sent his own lightning, and the victims seized.


[Lord Harcourt, on whose property the unfortunate pair lived, was apprehensive that the country people would not understand the above, and Pope wrote the subjoined]:--

NEAR THIS PLACE LIE THE BODIES OF
    JOHN HEWET AND SARAH DREW,
        AN INDUSTRIOUS YOUNG MAN,
AND VIRTUOUS MAIDEN OF THIS PARISH;
        WHO, BEING AT HARVEST-WORK
        (WITH SEVERAL OTHERS),
WERE IN ONE INSTANT KILLED BY LIGHTNING,
        THE LAST DAY OF JULY 1718.

Think not, by rigorous judgme...

Alexander Pope

Vision

(For Aline)



Homer, they tell us, was blind and could not see the beautiful faces
    Looking up into his own and reflecting the joy of his dream,
    Yet did he seem
Gifted with eyes that could follow the gods to their holiest places.

I have no vision of gods, not of Eros with love-arrows laden,
    Jupiter thundering death or of Juno his white-breasted queen,
    Yet have I seen
All of the joy of the world in the innocent heart of a maiden.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

By the Wayside

Summer's face was rosiest, skies and woods were mellow,
Earth had heaven to friend, and heaven had earth to fellow,
When we met where wooded hills and meadows meet.
Autumn's face is pale, and all her late leaves yellow,
Now that here again we greet.
Wan with years whereof this eightieth nears December,
Fair and bright with love, the kind old face I know
Shines above the sweet small twain whose eyes remember
Heaven, and fill with April's light this pale November,
Though the dark year's glass run low.
Like a rose whose joy of life her silence utters
When the birds are loud, and low the lulled wind mutters,
Grave and silent shines the boy nigh three years old.
Wise and sweet his smile, that falters not nor flutters,
Glows, and turns the gloom to gold.
Like the new-bor...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Sonnet CXVIII.

Nom d' atra e tempestosa onda marina.

HE IS LED BY LOVE TO REASON.


    No wearied mariner to port e'er fled
From the dark billow, when some tempest's nigh,
As from tumultuous gloomy thoughts I fly--
Thoughts by the force of goading passion bred:
Nor wrathful glance of heaven so surely sped
Destruction to man's sight, as does that eye
Within whose bright black orb Love's Deity
Sharpens each dart, and tips with gold its head.
Enthroned in radiance there he sits, not blind,
Quiver'd, and naked, or by shame just veil'd,
A live, not fabled boy, with changeful wing;
Thence unto me he lends instruction kind,
And arts of verse from meaner bards conceal'd,
Thus am I taught whate'er of love I write or sing.

NOTT.


    Ne'er...

Francesco Petrarca