Duty Surviving Self - Love - By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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 though 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.

1826.