XL.

"I cannot blame thy choice," the sage replied, "For soft and smooth are Fancy's flowery ways. And yet, even there, if left without a guide, The young adventurer unsafely plays. Eyes dazzled long by fiction's gaudy rays In modest truth no light nor beauty find. And who, my child, would trust the meteor-blaze, That soon must fail, and leave the wanderer blind, More dark and helpless far, than if it ne'er had shin'd?