Work Without Hope by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

LINES COMPOSED 2IST FEBRUARY 1827

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.