Classic Poem

'Tis not a coat of gray or shepherd's life,
'Tis not in fields or woods remote to live,
That adds or takes from one that peace or strife
Which to our days such good or ill doth give:
It is the mind that makes the man's estate
For ever happy or unfortunate.

Then first the mind of passions must be free
Of him that would to happiness aspire,
Whether in princes' palaces to be
Or whether to his cottage he retire;
For our desires that on extremes are bent
Are friends to care and traitors to content.

Nor should we blame our friends though false they be,
Since there are thousands false for one that's true,
But our own blindness that we cannot see
To choose the best although they be but few;
For he that every feigned friend will trust
Proves true to friend but to himself unjust.

The faults we have are they that made our woe;
Our virtues are the motives of our joy.
Then is it vain if we to deserts go
To seek our bliss or shroud us from annoy.
Our place need not be changed but our will,
For everywhere we may do good or ill.

But this I do not dedicate to thee
As one that holds himself fit to advise,
Or that my lines to him should precepts be
That is less ill than I, and much more wise.
But 'tis no harm morality to preach,
For men do often learn when they do teach.