Poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Duty Surviving Self-Love, the Only Sure Friend of Declining Life

       A Soliloquy

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.

1. To a Lady, Offended by a Sportive Observation That Women Have No Souls
2. Home-Sick. Written In Germany
3. To the Autumnal Moon
4. The Picture, Or The Lover's Resolution
5. What Is an Epigram?

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