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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.
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.
He who has lived obscurely and quietly has lived well.
[Lat., Bene qui latuit, bene vixit.]
He who has lived obscurely and quietly has lived well.
[Lat., Bene qui latuit, bene vixit.]
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.
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.
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
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.
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.
