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.

Yet was he but a squire of low degree.

Yet was he but a squire of low degree.

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.]

Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind.

Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none read more

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

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.

I give the fight up; let there be an end,
A privacy, an obscure nook for me,
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I give the fight up; let there be an end,
A privacy, an obscure nook for me,
I want to be forgotten even by God.

Obscurity and competence: That is the life that is worth living.

Obscurity and competence: That is the life that is worth living.