Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1772 - 1834

 

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?

1805

Source:

The Golden Book Of Coleridge
Copyright 1914
London: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.