Duty surviving Self-Love

• 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.