Work Without Hope

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1. All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair--
2. The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing--
3. And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
4. Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
5. And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
6. Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
7. Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
8. Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
9. Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
10. For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
11. With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
12. And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
13. Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
14. And Hope without an object cannot live.