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’… - John Clare

And what is Life? — An hour-glass on the run,

I am — yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes — They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live — like vapours tossed

O I never thought that joys would run away from boys,
Or that boys would change their minds and forsake such summer joys;
But alack I never dreamed that the world had other toys

I love to see the old heath's withered brake Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling, While the old heron from the lonely lake Starts slow and flaps its melancholy wing