The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood,
Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres;
For who liv'd king, but I could dig his grave?
And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?
Shaks. Henry VI. Part III.
Lo now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!
My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Even now forsake me; and, of all my lands
Is nothing left me, but my body's length!
To sleep! perchance to dream;-ay, there's the rub;
Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and For in that sleep of death what dreams may comc,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: There's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death—
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
About the hour of eight, (which he himself
Foretold should be his last,) full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
For further life in this world I ne'er hope;
Nor will I sue; although the king have mercies
More than I dare make faults.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
What, old acquaintance! could not all this flesh
Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!
I could have better spared a better man.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I.
My cloud of dignity
Is held from falling with so weak a mind,
That it will quickly drop; my day is dim.
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.
I better brook the loss of brittle life,
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;
They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword
my flesh:
Thou know'st, 't is common; all that live, must But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool;
Passing through nature to eternity.
And time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop.
Brave Percy: fare thee well!
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk:
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now, two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough.
Death levels all things in his march,
Nought can resist his mighty strength;
The palace proud, - triumphal arch,
Shall mete their shadow's length;
The rich, the poor, one common bed
Shall find in the unhonour'd grave,
Shaks. Henry VI. Part I. Where weeds shall crown alike the head
I, in my own woe charm'd
Could not find death where I did hear him groan;
Nor feel him, where he struck: Being an ugly On death and judgment, heaven and hell,
'Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds, Sweet words; or hath more ministers than we That draw his knives i' the war.
Who oft doth think, must needs die well.
When our souls shall leave this dwelling,
Shaks. Cymb. The glory of one fair and virtuous action
Is above all the scutcheons on our tomb,
Or silken banners over us.
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea,
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 't were in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
Shaks. Richard III.
Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damned grudges; here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.
Shaks. Titus Andronicus.
Here is my journey's end, here is my birth,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
That must end us, that must be our cure,
To be no more; sad cure; for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
These thoughts that wander through eternity;
To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion.
If shape it may be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
Shaks. Othello. Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
O my
life!-my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd: beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Let no man fear to die, we love to sleep all,
And death is but the sounder sleep.
Beaumont's Humorous Lieutenant.
Why should man's high aspiring mind
Burn in him with so proud a breath;
When all his haughty views can find
In this world, yield to death;
The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise,
The rich, the poor, and great and small,
Are each but worms' anatomies,
To strew his quiet hall.
The warm embraces of her flesh is now,
Even now forsaking; the frail body must
Like a lost feather fall from off the wing
Of vanity.
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Milton's Paradise Lost, Death
Grinn'd horribly a ghastly smile, to hear
His famine should be fill'd, and bless'd his maw
Destin'd to that good hour.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Why am I mock'd with death, lengthened out
To deathless pain? how gladly would I meet
Mortality my sentence, and be earth
Insensible, how glad would lay me down,
As in my mother's lap; there I should rest
And sleep secure.
Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; despair
Tended the sick busiest from couch to couch
And over them triumphant death his dart
Shook, but delay'd to strike, though oft invok'd
With vows, as their chief good and final hope.
Milton's Paradise Los
Grim death in different shapes
Depopulates the nations; thousands fall
His victims; youths, and virgins, in their flower,
Reluctant die, and sighing leave their loves
Unfinish'd, by infectious heaven destroy'd.
Yet tell me, frighted senses! what is death?
Blood only stopp'd, and interrupted breath;
The utmost limit of a narrow span,
And end of motion, which with life began.
As smoke that rises from the kindling fires,
Is seen this moment, and the next expires;
As empty clouds by rising winds are tost,
Oh! I less could fear to lose this being!
Which, like a snow-ball in my coward hand,
The more 't is grasp'd, the faster melts away
Dryden's All for Love
Death is not dreadful to a mind resolv'd,
It seems as natural as to be born.
Groans and convulsions, and discolour'd faces,
Friends weeping round us, blacks, and obsequies,
Make death a dreadful thing. The pomp of death
Is far more terrible than death itself.
Lee's Lucius Junius Brutus.
The dead are only happy, and the dying:
The dead are stiff, and lasting slumbers hold'em.
Their fleeting forms scarce sooner found than lost; He who is near his death, but turns about,
So vanishes our state, so pass our days;
So life but opens now, and now decays;
The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh,
To live is scarce distinguish'd from to die.
Prior's Soloman.
Why is the hearse with 'scutcheons blazon'd round,
And with the nodding plume of ostrich crown'd?
No: the dead know it not, nor profit gain;
It only serves to prove the living vain.
Gay's Trivia.
She's gone! for ever gone! The king of terrors
Lays his rude hands upon her lovely limbs,
And blasts her beauties with his icy breath.
Dennis's Appius and Virginia.
And exercis'd below his iron reign;
Then upward to the seat of life he goes:
Sense fled before him; what he touch'd he froze.
Dryden's Palemon and Arcite.
Then 't is our best, since thus ordain'd to die,
To make a virtue of necessity.
Take what he gives, since to rebel is vain,
The bad grows better, which we well sustain,
And could we choose the time, and choose aright,
"Tis best to die, our honour at the height.
Dryden's Palemon and Arcite.
Poor abject creatures! how they fear to die
Who never knew one happy hour in life,
Yet shake to lay it down! Is load so pleasant?
Or nas heav'n bid the happiness of death,
That man may dare to live.
1 feel death rising higher still, and higher
Within my bosom; every breath I fetch
Shuts up my life within a shorter compass:
Ani, like the vanishing sound of bells, grows less
And less each pulse, till i. be lost in air.
Shuffles awhile to make his pillow easy,
Then slips into his shroud and rests for ever.
Lee's Casar Borgia.
O death! thou gentle end of human sorrows,
Still must my weary eye-lids vainly wake,
In tedious expectation of thy peace:
Why stand thy thousand, thousand doors still open
To take the wretched in, if stern religion
Guards every passage, and forbids my entrance?
Rowe's Tamerlane.
There life gave way, and the last rosy breath
Went in that sigh; death, like a brutal victor
Already enter'd, with rude haste defaces
The lovely frame he's master'd.
The death of those distinguish'd by their station, | Why start at death? where is he? death arriv'd, But by their virtue more, awakes the mind
To solemn dread, and strikes a saddening awe.
Not that we grieve for them, but for ourselves,
Left to the toil of life. And yet the best
Are, by the playful children of this world,
At once forgot, as they had never been.
Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda.
To die, I own
Is a dread passage terrible to nature,
Chiefly to those who have, like me, been happy.
Thomson's Edward and Eleanora.
Thus o'er the dying lamp th' unsteady flame
Hangs quivering on the point, leaps off by fits
And falls again, as loath to quit its hold.
Is past; not come or gone, he's never here.
Ere hope, sensation fails; black-boding man
Receives, not suffers death's tremendous blow.
The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave;
The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm,
These are the bug-bears of a winter's eve,
The terrors of the living, not the dead.
Imagination's fool, and error's wretch,
Man makes a death, which nature never made;
Then on the point of his own fancy falls;
And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Death leads the dance, or stamps the deadly die, Nor ever fails the midnight bowl to crown. Addison's Cato. Gaily carousing to his gay compeers, Let guilt, or fear, Disturb man's rest, Cato knows neither of them; Indifferent in his choice, to sleep or die.
Addison's Cato.
Will toys amuse, when med'cincs cannot cure?
When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes
Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight,
As lands and cities, with their glittering spires,
To the poor shatter'd bark by sudden storm
Thrown off to sea, and soon to perish there?
Will toys amuse? No: thrones will then be toys,
And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Each friend snatch'd from us, is a plume
Pluck'd from the wing of human vanity,
Which makes us stoop from our aerial heights,
And, dampt with omen of our own disease,
On drooping pinions of ambition lower'd,
Just skim earth's surface, ere we break it up,
O'er putrid earth to scratch a little dust,
And save the world a nuisance.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Death is the crown of life:
Were death deny'd, poor men would live in vain;
Were death deny'd, to live would not be life:
Were death deny'd, ev'n fools would wish to die.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exhal'd, and went to heaven.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Like other tyrants, death delights to smite,
What, smitten, most proclaims the pride of pow'r,
And arbitrary nod. His joy supreme,
To bid the wretch survive the fortunate;
The feeble wrap the athletic in his shroud;
And weeping fathers build their children's tomb.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Inly he laughs, to see them laugh at him,
As absent far: and when the revel burns,
When fear is banish'd, and triumphant thought,
Calling for all the joys beneath the moon,
Against him turns the key, and bids him sup
With their progenitors, he drops his mask;
Frowns out at full; they start, despair, expire
Young's Night Thoughts
Whate'er his fate, or fame, who greatly dies; High flush'd with hope, where heroes shall despair. Young's Night Thoughts.
Where the prime actors of the last year's scene; Their post so proud, their buskin, and their plume? How many sleep, who kept the world awake With lustre and with noise!
Young's Night Thoughts. When down thy vale, unlock'd my midnight thought,
That loves to wander in thy sunless realms,
O death! I stretch my view; what visions rise!
What triumphs! toils imperial! arts divine!
In wither'd laurels glide before my sight!
What lengths of far-famed ages, billow'd high
With human agitation, roll along
In unsubstantial images of air?
The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
Whisp'ring faint echoes of the world's applause
With penitential aspect, as they pass,
All point at earth, and hiss at human pride,
The wisdom of the wise and prancings of the great.
Young's Night Thoughts
Now every splendid object of ambition,
Which lately, with their various glosses, pass'd
Upon my brain, and fool'd my idle heart,
Are taken from me by a little mist,
And all the world is vanish'd.
How shocking must thy summons be, O death,
To him that is at ease in his possessions!
Who, counting on long years of pleasure here,
Is quite unfurnish'd for that world to come!
In that dread moment, how the frantic soul
Raves round the walls of her clay tenement,
Runs to each avenue, and shrieks for help,
But shrieks in vain.
Sure, 't is a serious thing to die. my soul!
What a strange moment must it be, when near
Thy journey's end thou hast the gulph in view!
That awful gulph no mortal e'er repass'd,
To tell what's doing on the other side!
Nature runs back and shudders at the sight,
And every life-string bleeds at thought of parting.
Blair's Grave.
Death's shafts fly thick! Here falls the village
And there his pamper'd lord! The cup goes round,
And who so artful as to put it by!
Whose every day is carnival, not sated yet!
Unheard-of epicure! without a fellow!
The veriest gluttons do not always cram;
Some intervals of abstinence are sought
To edge the appetite; thou seekest none.
Death's but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever pass to God.
The world recedes; it disappears!
Heav'n opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O grave! where is thy victory ?
O death! where is thy sting?
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Can storied urn, or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?
Gray's Church-Yard,
That hour, O long belov'd, and long deplor'd!
Nor hymen's honours gather'd for thy brow,
When blooming youth, nor gentlest wisdom's arts,
Nor all thy lover's, all thy father's tears,
Avail'd to snatch thee from the cruel grave;
Thy agonizing looks, thy last farewell
Struck to the inmost feeling of my soul,
As with the hand of death.
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination. Heav'n! what enormous strength does death pos sess!
How muscular the giant's arm must be,
To grasp that strong-boned horse, and, spite of all
His furious efforts, fix him to the earth!
Yet, hold, he rises! no-the struggle's vain,
His strength avails him not. Beneath the gripe
Parnell. Of the remorseless monster, stretch'd at length
He lies with neck extended, head hard press'd,
Upon the very turf where late he fed.
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks now fading at the blast of death;
Cold is the breast which warm'd the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid!
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear,
Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful
bier.
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,
By foreign nands thy decent limbs compos'd,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
by strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd.
Pope.
“Enlarge my life with multitude of days!”—
In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays:
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know,
That life protracted, is protracted woe.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.
In life's last scene what prodigies surprise,
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise?
From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage
flow,
And Swift expires a driv'ler and a show.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.
Since, howe'er protracted, death will come,
Why fondly study with ingenious pains
To put it off!-To breathe a little longer
Is to defer our fate, but not to shun it:
Small gain! which wisdom with indiff'rent eye
Beholds.
Hannah More's David and Goliah
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