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Like beauteous flowers which vainly waste their scent
Of odours in unhaunted deserts.
Like beauteous flowers which vainly waste their scent
Of odours in unhaunted deserts.
Yet was he but a squire of low degree.
Yet was he but a squire of low degree.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not read more
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
Some write their wrongs in marble: he more just,
Stoop'd down serene and wrote them on the dust,
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Some write their wrongs in marble: he more just,
Stoop'd down serene and wrote them on the dust,
Trod under foot, the sport of every wind,
Swept from the earth and blotted from his mind,
There, secret in the grave, he bade them lie,
And grieved they could not 'scape the Almighty eye.
Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind.
Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind.
It is better to be famous than notorious, but better to be notorious than obscure.
It is better to be famous than notorious, but better to be notorious than obscure.
He shone with the greater splendor, because he was not seen.
[Lat., Eo magis praefulgebat quod non videbatur.]
He shone with the greater splendor, because he was not seen.
[Lat., Eo magis praefulgebat quod non videbatur.]
As night the life-inclining stars best shows,
So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose.
As night the life-inclining stars best shows,
So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose.