Duty Surviving Self-Love, The Only Sure Friend Of Declining Life A Soliloquy

Unchanged within, to see all changed without,

Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.

Yet why at others' Wanings should'st thou fret?

Then only might'st thou feel a just regret,

Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light

In selfish forethought of neglect and slight.

O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,

While, and on whom, thou may'st--shine on! nor heed

Whether the object by reflected light

Return thy radiance or absorb it quite:

And tho' thou notest from thy safe recess

Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,

Love them for what they are; nor love them less,

Because to thee they are not what they were.