SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

. Time, Real and Imaginary

AN ALLEGORY

the wide level of a mountain's head (I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place), Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread, Two lovely children run an endless race, A sister and a brother ! This far outstripp'd the other ; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, And looks and listens for the boy behind :

For he, alas ! is blind !

O'er rough and smooth with even step he pass'd, And knows not whether he be first or last.

��Jfork without Hope

A LL 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 unbrighten'd, 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.

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