| Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900. |
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| Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 1772–1834 |
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| 554. Work without Hope |
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| 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. | |
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| 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. | |
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