Work Without Hope
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave
their lair --
The bees are stirring -- birds are on the wing --
And Winter
slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of
Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair,
nor build, nor sing.
Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the
fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye
may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips
unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that
drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope
without an object cannot live.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(composed
21st February 1825)