John Clare’s speaker asks what life is, and answers with fading images: an hourglass running out, mist retreating from the sun, a repeated dream, a bubble that shrinks to nothing when seized. Hopes are a morning breeze that strips dew from flowers and dies, a cobweb hiding the thorn of disappointment. Trouble’s cause is unknown, though it flows freely; pain remains a mystery under fate’s seal. Death is a dreaded name, yet the weary crave its long sleep; peace exists only in heaven or the grave. Finally, life stripped of disguise is undesirable—a trial to teach mortals to prize a happiness denied until the skies. The speaker’s tone is one of exhausted questioning; everything familiar is shown to be hollow or fleeting, leaving a deep sense of sorrow and resignation.
What is Life? — Summary
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.
What are vain Hopes?--The puffing gale of morn, That of its charms divests the dewy lawn, And robs each floweret of its gem,--and dies; A cobweb hiding disappointment's thorn, Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.
And thou, O Trouble?--Nothing can suppose, (And sure the power of wisdom only knows,) What need requireth thee: So free and liberal as thy bounty flows, Some necessary cause must surely be; But disappointments, pains, and every woe Devoted wretches feel, The universal plagues of life below, Are mysteries still neath Fate's unbroken seal.
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?-- No where 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 every thing 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.