"Life, believe, is not a dream / So dark as sages say." The poem opens by contradicting the wise, and it answers them with weather rather than logic. Its message is simple and stubbornly cheerful. Life has dark patches, but they pass, so we should enjoy the good hours gratefully and meet the bad ones with courage. Readers who know Charlotte Brontë mainly as the author of the novel *Jane Eyre* may be struck by how direct and encouraging this voice is. The speaker sounds less like a storyteller than like a friend giving advice, and the imperatives pile up: "believe," "Enjoy," "bear."
The first stanza makes its case through a small weather system. A "little morning rain" foretells "a pleasant day," clouds of gloom are "transient all," and a shower makes the roses bloom. This is argument by analogy. If roses need rain, the poem implies, then sorrow may be doing some hidden work too, and the rhetorical question "O why lament its fall?" asks us to agree. The vocabulary of time supports the point. "Oft," "Sometimes" and "at times" all present trouble as an occasional visitor, never a permanent resident.
The second stanza raises the stakes. Rain and clouds give way to Death and sorrow, and the speaker meets them with the dismissive phrase "What though." Death "steps in" almost casually, like someone dropping by unannounced, and then "calls our Best away." The capital letter on "Best" suggests the people or things we value most, though the poem leaves that open. Hope is now personified as a winged figure. She "fell," but she "springs" back "elastic," and her wings stay "golden" and "buoyant." There are small echoes with the first stanza. The rain's "fall" returns as hope's "fell," so both are falls followed by recovery. "Bear" also appears twice. Hope is "strong to bear us well," and we in turn must "The day of trial bear." Support runs in both directions.
The form carries the mood. Each long stanza has eight lines of alternating length, a ballad-like pattern of longer and shorter lines, with the rhyme running ABCBDEDE in the first and ABABCDCD in the second. Between the stanzas come two short refrains made of adverbs, and these change the speed of the poem. "Rapidly, merrily" has a skipping, falling-forward beat (RAP-id-ly, MER-ri-ly), and "Life's sunny hours flit by" is quick enough to make the hours seem to fly, as the rhyme "by / fly" confirms. Because the adverbs come before any verb, the reader is carried along by the manner of living before learning what is being done.
The second refrain uses the same bouncing rhythm for a different purpose. "Manfully, fearlessly" belongs to the vocabulary of soldiers, and the language turns openly military: "trial," "quell," "victoriously." The first refrain says *enjoy* and the second says *endure*. The third line swells to "gloriously, victoriously," which makes the last line, "Can courage quell despair!", land like a final blow. The exclamation marks and the old-fashioned "O" add to the sense of someone addressing us directly.
The poem's strength is its energy and clarity. It states one idea, builds it through two well-chosen images (changing weather, a bird-like hope), and ends on a short, forceful line. It also helps that grief is not ignored. Death and despair are named, and the poem's confidence is clearer for having them in view. Its weakness is that it moves quickly. "What though" waves sorrow aside almost as soon as it appears, and a skeptical reader might say the speaker wins the argument by never lingering on loss. That speed is also part of its character, because the poem behaves as it advises. It does not dwell and it does not lament. It looks up at the "golden wings" and keeps going, and that determination to keep going gives the poem its lasting appeal.