On Friendship

Friendship, adieu! thou dear, deceitful good, So much profess'd, so little understood: How often, to thy sacred injur'd name, A thousand vain pretenders lay their claim? Like flies, attend the summer of our day, And in the sun-beams of our fortunes play; But when life's winter-evening shades come on, Soon we behold the treacherous insects gone, And find ourselves at once deserted and undone.