Dear boy, when you meet with a rose,
Admire you the thorns very much?
Or like you to play with a ball,
When the handling it blisters your touch!

Yet should it be firm and compact,
It is easy to polish it nice;
If the rose is both pretty and sweet,
The thorns will come off in a trice.

The thistle has still many more,
As visible too in our eyes,
But who will take pains with a weed,
That nobody ever can prize?

'Tis what we deem precious and rare,
We most earnestly seek to amend;
And anxious attention and care,
Is the costliest gift of a friend.

We all have our follies: what then?
Let us note them, and never look bluff!
Without any caressing at all,
They will cling to us closely enough.

Weeds are of such obstinate growth,
They elude the most diligent hand;
And, if they were not to be check'd,
Would quickly run over the land.

If some could be taken away,
That hide part of your worth from the view;
The conquest perhaps would be ours,
But the profit is wholly to you.