WHAT IS LIFE?

By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Resembles life what once was deem'd of light,

Too ample in itself for human sight?

An absolute self — an element ungrounded —

All that we see, all colours of all shade

By encroach of darkness made?—

Is very life by consciousness unbounded?

And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,

A war-embrace of wrestling life and death?