Restoration & Augustan
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) was an Irish-born writer of extraordinary range — poet, playwright, and novelist — whose warmth and clarity made him one of the best-loved authors of his age.
The Deserted Village, his elegy for a vanishing rural England, and Retaliation, his affectionate mock-epitaphs on his own dinner-table friends, remain his most-read poems.
Poems (39)
- The Traveller; or, A Prospect of Society
- The Deserted Village
- Retaliation
- When lovely woman stoops to folly
- Prologue of Laberius
- On a Beautiful Youth struck Blind with Lightning
- The Gift. To Iris, in Bow Street
- The Logicians Refuted
- A Sonnet
- Stanzas on the Taking of Quebec
- An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize
- Description of an Author’s Bedchamber
- On seeing Mrs. *** perform in the Character of ****
- On the Death of the Right Hon.***
- An Epigram. Addressed to the Gentlemen reflected on in ‘The Rosciad’, a Poem, by the Author
- To G. C. and R. L.
- Translation of a South American Ode
- The Double Transformation. A Tale
- A New Simile, in the Manner of Swift
- Edwin and Angelina
- Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog
- Epilogue to The Good Natur’d Man
- Epilogue to The Sister
- Prologue to Zobeide
- Threnodia Augustalis: Sacred to the Memory of Her Late Royal Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales
- Song (‘Let school-masters,’ etc.)
- Epilogue to She Stoops to Conquer
- Song (‘Ah, me! when shall I marry me?’)
- Translation (‘Chaste are their instincts’)
- The Haunch of Venison
- Epitaph on Thomas Parnell
- The Clown’s Reply
- Epitaph on Edward Purdon
- Epilogue for Lee Lewes
- Epilogue written for She Stoops to Conquer (1)
- Epilogue written for She Stoops to Conquer (2)
- Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner
- Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. Bunbury
- Vida’s Game of Chess