Classic Poem

Say, can that word that's wrote or spoke
Some tender mark to hit,
Deserve the pleasing term of joke,
Or semblance bear of Wit?

When Vice or Folly we detect,
We licence then may crave,
To search the wound, the kind effect,
The patient's life to save.

But when some failing we descry,
Of no offensive hue,
We should not gaze with Critics eye,
Or bring it forth to view.

Each moral virtue of the mind,
Each form of outward grace,
Depriv'd of excellence we find,
If we malignly trace.