Duty Surviving Self-love

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Unchanged within, to see all changed without,
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
Yet why at others' Wanings should'st thou fret ?
Then only might'st thou feel a just regret,
Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light
In selfish forethought of neglect and slight.
O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,
While, and on whom, thou may'st--shine on ! nor heed
Whether the object by reflected light
Return thy radiance or absorb it quite :
And tho' thou notest from thy safe recess
Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are ; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.

Next 10 Poems

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Epigram
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Epitaph
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Exchange, The
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Faded Flower, The
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Fears In Solitude
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Forbearance
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Fragment
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : France: An Ode
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : From 'religious Musings'
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Previous 10 Poems

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Dungeon, The
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Despair
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Desire
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Dejection: An Ode
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Constancy To An Ideal Object
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Come, Come Thou Bleak December Wind ( Fragment )
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• Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Blossing Of The Solitary Date-tree, The