Work without Hope (Coleridge).

(1) All nature seems at work:

(2) Slugs leave their lair;

The bees are stirring, birds are on the wing,

(3) And Winter, slumbering in the open air,

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!

(1) And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,

(2) 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.