Death's head

“ "You mean the Garden of Death," she whispered.
"Yes, death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is." ”

“ As he is preaching to his congregation, Death, who is behind him with a stole about his neck, holds over his head the bone of a dead body, and by shewing it to the assembly, preaches to them, undoubtedly, the most eloquent of all sermons. ”

“ A man presents a mirror to a lady, in which her face is reflected as a death’s head.
2. Death shoots an arrow at a man and woman.
3. A man endeavouring to escape from Death is caught by him.
4. Death transfixes a prostrate warrior with a spear.
5. Two very grotesque Deaths, the one with a scythe, the other with a spade.
6. A group of five Deaths, four dancing a round, the other drumming.
7. Death on a bull, holding a dart in his hand.
8. Death in a cemetery running away with a coffin and pick-axe.
9. Death digging a grave for two shrouded bodies on the ground.
10. Death seizing a fool. ”

“ Death in a huge pair of jack-boots, seizes him by the arm with a view to unhorse him. 2. The Tinker. Death, with a skillet on his head, plunders the tinker’s basket. 3. The Hussar on horseback, accompanied by Death, also mounted, and, like his comrade, wearing an enormous hat with a feather. 4. The Physician. Death habited as a modern beau, with chapeau-bras, brings his urinal to the Doctor for inspection. 5. The fraudulent Innkeeper in the act of adulterating a cask of liquor is seized and throttled by a very grotesque Death in the habit of an alewife, with a vessel at her back. ”

“ The mad pulse beat back the baffled life with a low sob.
And so the stark and naked soul unfolded its wings to the dimness of Death!
A lonely, unknown Death.
A Death that left this dumb living body as his endless mark. ”

“ A terrific figure of Death on a galloping horse. In his left hand a trumpet, to which a flag, agitated by the wind, is attached. In the back ground, several human skeletons, variously employed. 2. Death carrying off an infant in his arms. In the back-ground, the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris. 3. Death walking away with a young child on his back. In the distance, another view of the above cemetery. 4. Death carrying off a female on his shoulders, with her head downwards, followed at a distance by another Death holding a corpse in his arms. ”

“ Snatched from the sightless faces of the dead,
Hoodwink the world, and keep the mourner bowed
In dust, real dust, with stones, real stones, for bread;
Lest, as you look one eighth of an inch beneath
The yellow skin of death,
You dream yourselves discoverers of the skull
That old memento mori of our faith;
Lest it be you who hunt a flying wraith
Through this dissolving stuff of hill and cloud;
Lest it be you, who, at the last, annul
Your covenant with your kind;
Lest it be you who darken heart and mind,
Sell the strong soul in bondage to a dream,
And fetter us once more to things that seem. ”

“ And a man with death's dews on his forehead, and blood on his coat and his cheek;
"I am dying — I feel death upon me — but yet, even yet, if God wills
I may crawl on my knees to the doctor's — yes, this is the last of the hills! ”

“ That sinister countenance seemed to him to presage some approaching calamity.
Thus, there are men whom fate has marked on the forehead with a fatal stamp. The mysterious sign is not displayed at every time and before all; but at certain epochs of life, when the unknown breath caresses the predestinated or cursed head, the mark all at once appeals, like a tawny light in the depth of night.
A curse! Fatality has moulded that man's brain, it has left its potent impress on his skull. ”

“ Like cormorants that seek a submerged prey.
An angel of destruction guards the door
And keeps the peace of our ancestral home;
Freedom to dream, to work, and to adore,
These vagrant days, nights of untroubled breath,
Are bought with death. ”

“ Why, need I tell thee what its shape or name?
Thou hast thy secret hidden from the light:
And be it sin or sorrow, woe or shame,
Thou dost not like to meet it in the night.
And yet it comes. As certainly as death,
And far more cruel since death ends all pain,
On lonesome nights we feel its icy breath,
And turn and face the thing we fancied slain.
With shrinking hearts, we view the ghastly shape;
We look into its eyes with fear and dread,
And know that we can never more escape
Until the grave doth fold us with the dead. ”

“ In a shroud of mourning liest thou among the woes,
My senses in a horrid darkness trapped expire.
Thy hands are bound, my freedom’s gone; eternal throes
Of death have chained my mind upon a funeral pyre. ”

“ We have sinned, we know it, and this place is death and Hell."
"Death comes," the voice pealed, "and death is not a dream or a forgetting. Death is real. But I, too, am real, and whom I will I save. I see the scheme of things, and in it no place for me, the brain and the body against me. ”

“ I held the tiny body like a leaf
All day and night within my arms; and so,
Close nestled to my yearning heart, Death passed,
As merciless as God, but left that look
Of two dead loves, as if Death's self knew pity. ”

“ His eyes with the hollow sockets stare round with an empty chillness.
He bears a scythe in his hands. It is Death with his icy message.
Clutching the bulky book, the host is in peaceful slumber,
When Death draws near to him softly, and peacefully near him lingers. ”

“ Where is the victory of the grave, if, so far from the grave holding us down, it frees us from the very thing which holds us down,—the mortal body?
Death is not death, then, if it kills no part of us, save that which hindered us from perfect life. ”

“ Thou wilt have helped my soul from Death
The second Death, that never dies,
That cannot die, when time is dead:
Live Death, wherein the lost soul cries,
Eternally uncomforted.
Dark Angel, with thine aching lust! ”

“ Only the dead with hands uplifted, the dead in frozen rest, the dead with the smile of death, or the hate of death, or the terror of death written upon their faces, seemed to watch and to wait in the chamber of the sepulchre. ”

“ Replied the Dead; "the shadow of a shade;
Death can retain no spirit!—woe and bliss,
And heaven and hell, are for the living made;
An instant flits between life's latest sigh
And life's renewal;—that it is to die! ”

“ The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,
The breath ceases and the pulse of the heart ceases,
The corpse stretches on the bed and the living look upon it,
It is palpable as the living are palpable.
The living look upon the corpse with their eyesight,
But without eyesight lingers a different living and looks curiously on the corpse.
3
To think the thought of death merged in the thought of materials,
To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking great interest in them, and we taking no interest in them. ”

“ Do the wings of death cast their shadows thus over the heart, which is so soon to be hushed in its beating by the clutch of the cold, bony hand? Does the yawning grave open wide its portals to the eye of the soul which is so soon to be free from the clay, leaving the companion of its earthly joys and sorrows to mingle "ashes with ashes, and dust with its original dust?" Are there some spirits so etherealized that they can look beyond the veil of flesh, and know that it is only a little while, and the company of the blest will be their companions forever? ”

“ You may talk and talk to the grief-stricken one who bends over the corpse in the coffin about death being a transition from a world of woe to a world of weal, and the distressed one may try to cherish the thought and proclaim belief, but the tears cease not to flow, the pain and anguish written upon every feature of the mourner refuse to give place to joy and gladness. ”

“ Nor shall a rose lift up its longing face
That we may cool our lips upon its mouth. [88]
And side by side with petals and with sighs,
With overweening tenderness and trust,
Shall rest the deadly layer of choking dust:
A weary skull, its sockets bare of eyes,
With grinning pathos from the title page
Will bear stark record of its master Death.
Sightless, yet seeing all Eternity,
With silent voice that rings more truthfully
Than any words we quickened with our breath
More full of wisdom than the speech of sage. ”

“ In another moment, the livid lips and sunken eye of the clay-cold corpse recall our thoughts to earth and to ourselves again. And while we think of mortality, sin, death, and the grave, we feel the prayer rise in our bosom, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!”
If there be a moment when Christ and salvation, death, judgment, heaven, and hell, appear more than ever to be momentous subjects of meditation, it is that which brings us to the side of a coffin containing the body of a departed believer. ”

“ O grave, where is thy victory! Blessed are they that die in the Lord! Death is not the chill shadow of the night—but the grey light of the dawn—the dawn of a new eternal day. Lift up your eyes and see its beauty. ”

“ Death, which after the haemorrhage had appeared as the beautiful winged boy who is so easily mistaken for the god of love—Death, who had incited me to write saucy, defiant verses about him, now confronted me as a hollow-eyed, hideous skeleton. ”

“ Death was before them as well as behind—turn which way they might, death stared them in the face—soon and certain—and on every side they saw its threatening arm—before, behind, above, and around them. ”

“ In various parts of the cemetery I observed several worn-out, wooden, triangular monuments on the totter; while others were lying prostrate on the grass—the “hic jacet” being exactly as applicable to each of themselves as to that departed being, whose life and death they had vainly presumed to commemorate. Although the inscriptions recorded by these frail historians were scarcely legible, yet roses and annual flowers, blooming on the grave, plainly showed that there was still in existence some friendly hand, some foot, some heart, that moved with kindly recollection towards the dead. ”

“ Diehl, glancing at the corpse.
“Yes,” said old April. “I've got the head—I remembered.”
Mr. Diehl went into the enclosure, and the cinders crunched under his boots
“By Jove!” he said, “you're an artist, Vane. I say, Montague, look at this corpse, the thing you didn't like—why, it's the best of the lot. You've improved it. Vane, old chap. It's just the old expression, but, by George! it's more life-like than ever. What is it? Something in the lie of the body, I suppose. It's just like life—isn't it, now, Monty?”
“It's more like death,” said Montague “I don't like it. ”

“ What sobs, what prayers of mourners do I hear?
What mean those tapers pale, that chanted knell?
Dost thou, O Death, thus whisper in mine ear
For the last time? On the grave's brink I break
My earthly slumbers; and to life awake!
2.
Soul, spark most precious of a flame divine,
Immortal dweller in a frame that dies,
Hush these alarms: for freedom shall be thine. ”

“ Know that when the time of your death has arrived, those most dear, will be the first to thrust you out. And what will be your real home? A grave will be the home of your body until the day of judgment; and your soul will have to go to its long home, either to paradise or to hell. ”

“ Death’s finger is everywhere. The rocks are built up of a life that was. Bodies, thoughts, and loves die: from where springs that whisper to the tiny soul of man, “You shall not die.” Ah, is there no truth of which this dream is shadow? ”

“ Have you ever shot in imagination the dreadful gulf that stands fixed between life and death, and between time and eternity? Have you ever tried to get a glimpse beforehand of your own place where you will be an hour after your death, when they are putting the grave-clothes on your still warm body, and when they are measuring your corpse for your coffin? ”

“ Patiently then I sat, and meekly awaited the carriage.
And I always think of the coffin whenever I see men
Running about in a state of doubtful and wild expectation."
Smilingly answered the pastor:—"Death's stirring image is neither
Unto the wise a cause of alarm,—or an end to the pious.
Back into life it urges the former, and teaches him action,
And, for the weal of the latter, it strengthens his hope in affliction.
Death is a giver of life unto both. ”

“ Like little flames of newly-kindled fire
Lie on life’s threshold nearest unto death;
And her life ebbs till she encompasseth
The tender offspring of fulfilled desire
And sinks into impenetrable peace. ”

“ And whether I die now, by this assassin's knife, or live a little longer to behold the safety I establish, I have lived long enough, and am content to die!—Whether this death be, as philosophers have told us, a dreamless, senseless, and interminable trance ”

“ Dead, and at full length he lay, enshrouded—the genius and the demon of the scene. Alas! he bore no portion in our mirth, save that his countenance distorted with the plague, and his eyes in which Death had but half extinguished the fire of the pestilence, seemed to take such interest in our merriment as the dead may take in the merriment of those who are to die. ”

“ Sessions approaching I often meditated on the word, Hanging; but the word struck so heavy on my Imagination, that it rather benummed than anyways quickned the sence of punishment: Death I lookt on then with the ignorant and misjudging eyes of a childish understanding, fancying that it was but the meer privation of Life, and there is an end, and not the separation of Soul and Body for a while, till they be by the Infinity rejoyn’d, never to be separated again, either in endless Joys, or Eternal Woes. ”