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.
Ed. note: The English Romantic poet John Clare spent his last twenty-seven years in asylums for the mad. What ailed him? In twenty-first century terms you might say he suffered from bipolar disorder and a protracted identity crisis. He also endured a mean bout of malaria and took to heart the failure of an early love affair with a farmer's daughter named Mary Joyce. In July 1841, he escaped from the private asylum where he had spent the four previous years. He walked eighty miles to Northborough, ate grass to keep from starving, and wrote up his adventures in an prose account dediucated to "Mary Clare," his imaginary wife.Later that year, he was certified as insane and brought to St. Andrew's Asylum, in Northampton where he proceeded to write some of his best poems . He said he found his poems "in the fields." All he did was "write them down."-- DL
“grammar in learning is like tyranny in government - confound the bitch I'll never be her slave.”
―
*
And here is Clare's contribution to the anthology of great two-line poems:
“Language has not the power to speak what love indites
The soul lies buried in the Ink that writes.”
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