Work without Hope

• 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.