Classic Poem

Virtue concealed within our breast
Is inactivity at best:
But, never shall the muse endure
To let your virtues lie obscure,
Or suffer envy to conceal
Your labours for the public weal.
Within your breast all wisdom lies,
Either to govern or advise;
Your steady soul preserves her frame
In good and evil times the same.
Pale Avarice and lurking Fraud
Stand in your sacred presence awed;
Your hand alone from gold abstains,
Which drags the slavish world in chains.

Him for an happy man I own,
Whose fortune is not overgrown;
And, happy he, who wisely knows
To use the gifts, that heaven bestows;
Or, if it please the powers divine,
Can suffer want, and not repine.
The man, who infamy to shun,
Into the arms of death would run,
That man is ready to defend
With life his country, or his friend.