Wednesday Poem: Work Without Hope

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a fascinating man to read about; he always seems drawn to darkness yet struggles towards the light. Much of his life was a struggle to complete ambitious literary projects even while suffering from depression and opium addiction. And as you would expect, Coleridge can plumb depths of darkness and fevered imagery that I've never come across in, say, Wordsworth or Keats. But here's a somewhat calmer one, though it does touch on futility and struggle.

Work Without Hope
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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.