What is Life?
by John Clare

English poet. His first book, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, was printed by Keats' publishers Taylor and Hessey in 1820. It sold well, and Clare was presented as a 'ploughman poet' in the mould of Burns or Robert Bloomfield. His next book The Village Minstrel, appeared the following year, but The Shepherd's Calendar (1827), The Rural Muse (1835) took much longer to write and did not sell. His poetry was neglected in the nineteenth century, but he is now firmly established as one of the major poets of the Romantic school, which included Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley and Byron.

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What is Life?
by John Clare

And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still-repeated dream.
Its length? A minute's pause, a moment's thought.
And Happiness? A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.

And what is Hope? The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each flow'ret of its gem -and dies;
A cobweb, hiding disappointment's thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.

And what is Death? Is still the cause unfound?
That dark mysterious name of horrid sound?
A long and lingering sleep the weary crave.
And Peace? Where can its happiness abound?
Nowhere at all, save heaven and the grave.

Then what is Life? When stripped of its disguise,
A thing to be desired it cannot be;
Since everything that meets our foolish eyes
Gives proof sufficient of its vanity.
'Tis but a trial all must undergo,
To teach unthankful mortals how to prize
That happiness vain man's denied to know,
Until he's called to claim it in the skies.

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What is Life? by John Clare