In this short Life — Hourglass

Dickinson can control her own life, like someone who can control the flow of an hourglass. This poem sounds pessimistic if we treat the hour as a metaphor, or it has a question mark at the end, but then the short life and an hour are duplicated.

In this short Life
That only lasts an hour
How much－how little－is
Within our power

(F.1292/J.1287)

[1] Life:: the period of sand running in an hourglass. this:: a hint on some specific thing.
[2] lasts an hour:: a hint on hourglass.
[3-4] How, power:: How much sand, how little the neck, is under our control. Dickinson controlled her life's flow and restriction, or writing and seclusion.

So run the sands of life through this quiet hourglass. So glides the Life away in the Old Precinct. ─ All the Year Round (1860) by Charles Dickens