1. We heard of your virtues, told and heard,
And that tale was true for us indeed.

2. But when those virtues we witnessed outright,
We saw our hearing fell short of the deed.

3. Not a tenth of what's told could we find there,
Nor a tenth of what's there was to us conveyed.

4. Report cannot equal seeing face to face,
Nor what we were told match what we surveyed.