Fragment XXXIV: Never engage with a poltroon or craven

Never engage with a poltroon or craven,
Avoid him, Kurnus, as a treacherous haven.
Those friends and hearty comrades, as you think,
(Ready to join you when you feast and drink,)
Those easy friends, from difficulty shrink.
For a shrewd intellect, the best employ
Is to detect a soul of base alloy :
No task is harder, nor imports so much:
Silver or gold, you prove it by the touch ;
Yon separate the pure, discard the dross,
And disregard the labour and the loss ;
But a friend’s heart,—base and adulterate,
A friendly surface with a core of hate,—
Of all the frauds with which the Fates have curst
Our simple easy nature, is the worst:
Beyond the rest, ruinous in effect,—
And of all others hardest to detect.
For men’s and women’s hearts you cannot try
Beforehand, like the cattle that you buy.
Nor human wit nor reason, when you esky
For such a purchase, can escape deceit ;
Fancy betrays us, and assists the cheat.