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Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Duty Surviving Self-Love, The Only Sure Friend Of Declining Life. A Soliloquy
Work rating: Medium

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.
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