This tale a sage once told his son,
And thus apply’d it when he’d done:—
“Do you, my child, with unsuspecting eye,
O’erlook what others labour to descry;
Kind to all faults, and to all failings blind,
Be you the last to think affronts design’d.
Cold seems thy friend?—by the severest laws
Thy conduct try, to find the latent cause.
Let thy heart pant for universal praise,
Such as, unbrib’d, to virtue, virtue pays.