| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909. | | | | Work without Hope | | By Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) |
| | | 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 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. | | | | |
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