Let others barter servile faith for gold,
His friendship is not to be bought or sold:
Fierce opposition he, unmov'd, shall face,
Modest in favour, daring in disgrace,
To share thy adverse fate alone, pretend;
In power, a servant; out of power, a friend.
Here pour thy favours in an ample flood,
Indulge thy boundless thirst of doing good:
Nor think that good to him alone confin'd;
Such to oblige, is to oblige mankind.
If thus thy mighty master's steps thou trace,
The brave to cherish, and the good to grace;
Long shalt thou stand from rage and faction free,
And teach us long to love the king, through thee:
Or fall a victim dangerous to the foe,
And make him tremble when he strikes the blow;
While honour, gratitude, affection join
To deck thy close, and brighten thy decline;
(Illustrious doom!) the great, when this displac'd,
With friendship guarded, and with virtue grac'd,
In awful ruin, like Rome's senate, fall,
The prey and worship of the wondering Gaul.
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