Work Without Hope

All Nature seems at work.

Slugs leave their lair--The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing--And

ER, 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?

RK

UT

PE draws nectar in a sieve,

And

PE without an object cannot live.

Lines Composed 21st February, 1827