Since all, that beat about in Nature's range, <br />Or veer or vanish ; why should'st thou remain <br />The only constant in a world of change, <br />O yearning THOUGHT ! that liv'st but in the brain ? <br />Call to the HOURS, that in the distance play, <br />The faery people of the future day-- -- <br />Fond THOUGHT ! not one of all that shining swarm <br />Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath, <br />Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm, <br />Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death ! <br />Yet still thou haunt'st me ; and though well I see, <br />She is not thou, and only thou art she, <br />Still, still as though some dear embodied Good, <br />Some living Love before my eyes there stood <br />With answering look a ready ear to lend, <br />I mourn to thee and say--`Ah ! loveliest Friend ! <br />That this the meed of all my toils might be, <br />To have a home, an English home, and thee !' <br />Vain repetition ! Home and Thou are one. <br />The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine upon, <br />Lulled by the Thrush and wakened by the Lark, <br />Without thee were but a becalméd Bark, <br />Whose Helmsman on an Ocean waste and wide <br />Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside. <br /> <br />And art thou nothing ? Such thou art, as when <br />The woodman winding westward up the glen <br />At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze <br />The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze, <br />Sees full before him, gliding without tread, <br />An image with a glory round its head ; <br />The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues, <br />Nor knows he makes the shadow, he pursues !<br /><br />Samuel Taylor Coleridge<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/constancy-to-an-ideal-object/
