The Visionary Hope by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Sad lot, to have no Hope! Though lowly kneeling / He fain would frame a prayer within his breast, / Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of healing, / That his sick body might have ease and rest; / He strove in vain! the dull sighs from his chest / Against his will the stifling load revealing, / Though Nature forced; though like some captive guest, / Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast, / An alien's restless mood but half concealing, / The sternness on his gentle brow confessed, / Sickness within and miserable feeling: / Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams, / And dreaded sleep, each night repelled in vain, / Each night was scattered by its own loud screams: / Yet never could his heart command, though fain, / One deep full wish to be no more in pain.

That Hope, which was his inward bliss and boast, / Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood, / Though changed in nature, wander where he would -- / For Love's Despair is but Hope's pining Ghost! / For this one hope he makes his hourly moan, / He wishes and _can_ wish for this alone! / Pierced, as with light from Heaven, before its gleams / (So the love-stricken visionary deems) / Disease would vanish, like a summer shower, / Whose dews fling sunshine from the noon-tide bower! / Or let it stay! yet this one Hope should give / Such strength that he would bless his pains and live.