Away, those cloudy looks, that lab'ring sigh, <br />The peevish offspring of a sickly hour! <br />Nor meanly thus complain of fortune's power, <br />When the blind gamester throws a luckless die. <br /> <br />Yon setting sun flashes a mournful gleam <br />Behind those broken clouds, his stormy train: <br />To-morrow shall the many-colord main <br />In brightness roll beneath his orient beam! <br /> <br />Wild as th' autumnal gust, the hand of Time <br />Flies o'er his mystic lyre! in shadowy dance <br />Th' alternate groups of joy and grief advance, <br />Responsive to his varying strains sublime! <br /> <br />Bears on its wing each hour a load of fate. <br />The swain, who lulled by Seine's wild murmurs, led <br />His weary oxen to their nightly shed, <br />To-day may rule a tempest-troubled State. <br /> <br />Nor shall not fortune with a vengeful smile <br />Survey the sanguinary despot's might, <br />And haply hurl the pageant from his height, <br />Unwept to wander in some savage isle. <br /> <br />There, shiv'ring sad beneath the tempest's frown, <br />Round his tired limbs to wrap the purple vest; <br />And mixed with nails and beads, an equal jest! <br />Barter for food the jewels of his crown.<br /><br />Samuel Taylor Coleridge<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-a-friend-in-answer-to-a-melancholy-letter/
