As for his place, he could but say this of it,
That the fatigue was greater than the profit.
LXXIV.
Heaven, and his friends, knew that a private life
Had ever been his sole and whole ambition;
But could he quit his King in times of strife,
Which threatened the whole country with perdition?
When demagogues would with a butcher's knife
Cut through and through (oh! damnable incision!)
The Gordian or the Geordi-an knot, whose strings