Cui Bono

Thomas Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. I (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1881), p. 471:

What is Hope? A smiling rainbow
Children follow through the wet;
’Tis not here, still yonder, yonder:
Never urchin found it yet.

What is Life? A thawing iceboard
On a sea with sunny shore; --
Gay we sail; it melts beneath us;
We are sunk, and seen no more.

What is Man? A foolish baby,
Vainly strives, and fights, and frets;
Demanding all, deserving nothing; --
One small grave is what he gets.