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ON A FRIEND.
33
He force to start amid her feign'd caress
Vice, siren-hag! in native ugliness,
A Brother's fate will haply rouse the tear,
And on he goes in heaviness and fear!
But if his fond heart call to Pleasure's bower
Some pigmy Folly in a careless hour,
The faithless guest shall stamp th' inchanted ground
And mingled forms of Mis'ry rise around:
Heart-fretting Fear, with pallid look aghast,
That courts the future woe to hide the past;
Remorse, the poison'd arrow in his side;
And loud lewd Mirth, to Anguish close allied:
Till Frenzy, fierce-ey'd child of moping pain,
Darts her hot lightning flash athwart the brain.
Rest, injur'd shade! Shall Slander squatting near
Spit her cold venom in a dead Man's ear?
D
