Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 17721834554. 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, | 5 |
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! | 10 |
With lips unbrighten’d, 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. |