Resembles life, what once was held of light,
Too simple in itself for human sight?
An absolute self? an element ungrounded?
All, that we see, all colors of all shade
...By encroach of darkness made?
Is life itself by consciousness unbounded?
And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,
A war-embrace of wrestling life and death? 

--What is Life? ; Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1804)