[
  {
    "title": "What is Life?",
    "author": "John Clare",
    "lines": [
      "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."
    ],
    "linecount": "33"
  },
  {
    "title": "What Is Life?",
    "author": "Samuel Coleridge",
    "lines": [
      "Resembles Life what once was held of Light,",
      "Too ample in itself for human sight ?",
      "An absolute Self--an element ungrounded--",
      "All, that we see, all colours of all shade",
      "[Image]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 ?"
    ],
    "linecount": "8"
  }
]