“It is safer in humble retirement to hide;

Earth’s praises I court not; my graces were given

To exhale, in their careless redundance, to heaven.”

As the rest of their talk was of love, and as I

Was acting the part of an eaves-dropping spy,

I will not report it; but this I have told,

As conveying a lesson for young and for old.

THE SONG OF THE EXILE.