I never claimed to be a paragon of normal desire.
Ā·
I never claimed to be a paragon of normal desire.
“Hermit hoar, in solemn cell,
Wearing out life’s evening gray;
Smite thy bosom, sage, and tell,
Where is bliss, and which the way?
Thus I spake; and speaking sigh’d;
Scarce repress’d the starting tear;ā
When the smiling sage reply’dā
Come, my lad, and drink some beer.”
Samuel Johnson | “Lines on Thomas Warton’s Poems”