Fragment XXXII: Let no persuasive art tempt you to place

Let no persuasive art tempt you to place
Your confidence in crafty minds and base ;—
How can it answer? Will their help avail
When danger. presses, and your foes assail ?
The blessing which the gods in bounty send,
Will they consent to share it with a friend?
No!—To bestrew the waves with scatter’d grain,
To cultivate the surface of the main,
Is not a task more absolutely vain .
Than cultivating such allies as these,—
Fickle and unproductive as the seas.
Such are all baser minds, never at rest,
With new demands importunately press’d,
A new pretension or a new request ;
Till, foil’d with a refusal of the last,
They disavow their obligations past.
But brave and gallant hearts are cheaply gain’d
Faithful adherents, easily retain’d ;
Men that will never disavow the debt
. Of gratitude, or cancel or forget.