Uttered out of time, or concealed in its season, good savoureth of evil; To be secret looketh like guilt, to speak out may breed contention: Often have I known the honest heart, flaming with indignant virtue, Provoke unneeded war by its rash ambassador the tongue: Often have I seen the charitable man go so slily on his mission, That those who met him in the twilight, took him for a skulking thief: I have heard the zealous youth telling out his holy secrets Before a swinish throng, who mocked him as he spake; And I considered, his openness was hardening them that mocked, Whereas a judicious keeping-back might have won their sympathy: I have judged rashly and harshly the hand, liberal in the dark, Because in the broad daylight, it hath holden it a virtue to be close; And the silent tongue have I condemned, because reserve hath chained it, That it hid, yea from a brother, the kindness it had done by comforting. No need to sound a trumpet, but less to hush a footfall: Do thou thy good openly, not as though the doing were a crime. Secresy goeth cowled, and Honesty demandeth wherefore? For he judgeth--judgeth he not well?--that nothing need be hid but guilt. Why should thy good be evil spoken of, through thine unrighteous silence? If thou art challenged, speak, and prove the good thou doest. The free example of benevolence, unobtruded, yet unhidden, Soundeth in the ears of sloth, Go, and do thou likewise: And I wot the hypocrite's sin to be of darker dye, Because the good man, fearing, thereby hideth his light: But neither God nor man hath bid thee cloak thy good, When a seasonable word would set thee in thy sphere, that all might see thy brightness. Ascribe the honour to thy Lord, but be thou jealous of that honour, Nor think it light and worthless, because thou mayst not wear it for thyself: Remember, thy grand prerogative is free unshackled utterance, And suffer not the flood-gates of secresy to lock the full river of thy speech.