Seeking a real friend we seem
To adopt the chymist's golden dream,
With still less hope of thriving.
Sometimes the fault is all our own,
Some blemish, in due time made known,
By trespass or omission;
Sometimes occasion brings to light
Our friend's defect, long hid from sight,
And even from suspicion.
Then judge yourself, and prove your man As circumspectly as you can,
And having made election,
Beware no negligence of yours,
Such as a friend but ill endures,
Enfeeble his affection...
That secrets are a sacred trust;
That friends should be sincere and just,
That constancy befits them;
Are observations on the case,
That savour much of common-place,
And all the world admits them.
But 'tis not timber, lead, and stone,
An architect requires alone
To finish a fine building
The palace were but half complete,
If he could possibly forget
The carving and the gilding.
The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your back,
How he esteems your merit,
Is such a friend, that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.
The same we practised at first sight,
Must save it from declension.
Some act upon this prudent plan, "Say little and hear all you can.' Safe policy, but hateful
So barren lands imbibe the shower,
But render neither fruit nor flower,
Unpleasant and ungrateful.
The man I trust, if shy to me,
Shall find me as reserved as he;
No subterfuge or pleading
Shall win my confidence again,
I will by no means entertain
A spy on my proceeding...
These samples-for alas! at last
These are but samples, and a taste
Of evils yet unmentioned—
May prove the task a task indeed,
In which 'tis much if we succeed
However well-intentioned.
Pursue the search, and you will find
Good sense and knowledge of mankind
To be at least expedient,
And after summing all the rest,
Religion ruling in the breast
A principal ingredient.
The noblest Friendship ever shewn
The Saviour's history makes known,
Though some have turned and turned it;
And whether being crazed or blind,
Or seeking with a biassed mind,
Have not, it seems, discerned it,
Oh Friendship! if my soul forego
Thy dear delights while here below;
To mortify and grieve me,
May I myself at last appear
Unworthy, base, and insincere,
Or may my friend deceive met
Subjoined to the Yearly Bill of Mortality of the
Pallida Mers æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,
Regumque turres.
Pale death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls, and hovels of the poor.
WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run
The Nen's barge-laden wave,
All these, life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the grave.
Was man (frail always) made more frail
Than in foregoing years?
Did famine or did plague prevail,
That so much death appears?
No; these were vigorous as their sires,
Nor plague nor famine came;
This annual tribute death requires,
And never waves his claim.
Like crowded forest-trees we stand,
And some are marked to fall;
The axe will smite at God's command,
And soon shall smite us all.
Green as the bay-tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,
The gay, the thoughtless, I have seen—
I passed-and they were gone.
Read, ye that run, the solemn truth,
With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.
No present health can health insure
For yet an hour to come;
No medicine, though it often cure,
Can always baulk the tomb.
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