Classic Poem

That I oppos'd your Arguments, 'tis true,
But I oppos'd alone to profit you:
No Honours from the Contradiction sought,
But to reclaim you from Mistake in Thought;
I should less Value for you sure have shewn,
To let you in an Error still run on:
'Tis kind, bewilder'd Travellers to stay,
When, from the Road they ought to take, they stray.
So when you from the Path of Reason go,
Your Error I in hearty Friendship shew:
Point out the Tract you should your self have chose,
Nor suffer you a Want of Sense t' expose.
If ignorant of Nothing you'd be thought,
Suffer your self by others to be taught;
And think the Road of Life is better known,
By such as farther than your self have gone.
But if that you to know the World pretend,
Think him, who leaves you to your self, no Friend;
For young Men drunk with Self-conceit or Pride,
Their Friends, like Sots, in spite of 'em shou'd guide;
Support their stagg'ring Steps, nor let them run,
Weak, and unguarded, in Delusion on:
Too oft, by fond Opinions, led astray,
We swerve from Truth, and take the diff'rent Way;
Who then from Error kindly sets us free,
Must in that Act our Friend accounted be;
Which he could not, if indolent and tame,
He saw us err, and strove not to reclaim.
For when a Man against himself does act,
His conscious Friend is guilty of his Fact;
And accessory to those Mischiefs grows,
Which he prevents not, yet which he fore-knows.
He then alone true Friendship does display,
Who will not let his frantick Friend have Way:
But when he sees him take a dang'rous Flight,
In Argument, or Action, sets him right.
Your Mind from Passion, or Conceit redeems,
E'er either flings you on some wild Extremes.
Passions, like Winds, when under no Command,
Drive us on hidden Rocks, and Hills of Sand:
And fond Conceit in Eddies plays us round,
'Till, unexpecting, we at once are drown'd.