APPEARANCES.
In fruit most tempting, ashes hidden lie;
In richest flowers lives not the sweetest breath;
In berries are, most beauteous to the eye,
Poisons impregnate, in whose taste is death;
The sweetest song-bird's plumage is not gay,
But birds which sing not are most fair to see,
Yet from the beautiful we turn away,
To list the song-bird's dulcet melody!
So homely virtue sometimes lowly lies,
By brazen vice's gaudy lustre seen;
But vice discerned, in ermine we despise;
And virtue known, we honor as a queen.
From fruit, flower, bird, from all the inference is,
We may mistake, full oft, appearances.