Death

“ Death, a light outshining life, bids heaven resume
⁠Star by star the souls whose light made earth divine.
Death, a night outshining day, sees burn and bloom
⁠Flower by flower, and sun by sun, the fames that shine
⁠Deathless, higher than life beheld their sovereign sign. ”

“ Do they still whisper, the old weary cries?
"'Mid youth and song, feasting and carnival,
Through laughter, through the roses, as of old
Comes Death, on shadowy and relentless feet,
Death, unappeasable by prayer or gold;
Death is the end, the end!" ”

“ 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! ”

“ Nor God, that is a darkness and a name—
Not these, not these my chorie dreams acclaim,
But Death, the last and ultimate desire,
Great Death I praise with litany and lyre,
And sombre pray'r implacably the same. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is no Death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call Death. She is not dead,—the child of our affection,— But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule. ”

“ In life, in death, She claims to hold his heart!
. . . Hath he not died in her own awful arms?
His sons and daughters in deep sable robed
Bear large white wreaths of blossom for his grave:
Yea, dark Death lies all buried and conceal'd
Under sweet emblems of immortal life! ”

“ Guide my spiritual powers.
3 He His spirit doth diffuse,
Sweeter far than midnight dews;
Lifting all my thoughts above,
On the wings of faith and love.
4 What if death my sleep invade;—
Should I be of death afraid?
Whilst encircled by Thine arm,
Death may strike, but cannot harm.
5 Visions brighter than the morn
Greet the deathless spirit born;
See, the guardian angel nigh
Waits to waft my soul on high!
[430]
6 With Thy heavenly presence blest,
Death is life, and labor, rest;
Welcome sleep or death to me,
Still secure, for still with Thee! ”

“ 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. ”

“ And how kind Death was, rubbing away the traces of what must have been a sordid existence, set about years back with the usual coarse pleasures and selfish hopes,—how kind Death was, letting all there was of spirit shine out so sweetly at the end. ”

“ 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! ”

“ It was death—the final earthly end of every living creature—death, the demolition of the human form, the breaking up of the vital functions, the dissolution between soul and body, the one great event that "happeneth to all;" the doom certain, the hour uncertain; coming in infancy, youth, maturity, as often or oftener than in age. ”

“ This solemn moment fly;
And we are to the margin come,
And we expect to die.
Oh that we now may grasp our Guide!
Lord, when the word is given,
Bid death's cold flood its waves divide,
And land us all in heaven! ”

“ How shall mortal language describe the triumph of stern relentless Death over the love of human hearts. He who sitteth in his calm glory above the reach of earthly sorrow—He to whose bosom that cherished one is now departed—He alone can tell the anguish of that trial. ”

“ What, if when death has wrack’d his power to kill,
The living death beyond the grave be mine.
The pencil and the chisel have no skill
To chain such thoughts to rest. O Love Divine
Who didst spread wide thy arms on Calvary,
Be thou my refuge, Lord! for I have none save thine! ”

“ Death was the wished-for messenger, whom he earnestly expected. Three days before that awful event, his pulse ceased to beat, and the sight of his eyes went from him—the last struggle is over; the bitterness of death is past. ”

“ Hold fast that Death may never come between;
Swear by the gods you will not let me go;
Make songs for Death as you would sing to Love—
But you will not assuage him. He alone
Of all the gods will take no gifts from men. ”

“ 'Death is never an ending, death is a change; Death is beautiful, for death is strange; Death is one dream out of another flowing; ”

“ The question, "Should I care to be surprised by death in what I am doing now?"—put it to the dissipated young man in his cups, put it to the respectable rogue—nay, put it to each one of us, and it will often bring the blush of shame to our cheeks. When, therefore, I commend the thought of death, I think of death not as a grim, grisly skeleton, a King of Terrors, but rather as a mighty angel, holding with averted face a wondrous lamp. ”

“ If death, indeed, be a calamity, Which thou intendest for us all, Whom thou, against our knowledge and our will, Hast forced to draw this mortal breath, Then, surely, he who dies, A lot more enviable hath Then he who feels his loved one’s death. ”

“ Life and Death
Of our own selves God makes a glass, wherein
Two shades are imaged, passing like a breath:
And one is Life, whose other name is Sin;
And one is Love, whose other name is Death.
VIII
Sorrow
Death takes her hand and leads her through the waste
Of her own soul, wherein she hears the voice
Of lost Love’s tears, and, famishing, can but taste
The dead-sea fruit of Life’s remembered joys. ”

“ Death follows after me; I walk in regions of Death, where no tree is; without a lantern to direct my steps, without a staff to support me."—Thus he laments through the still evening, till the curtains of darkness were drawn! ”

“ 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. ”

“ I had made but one step into paradise and a hidden duty compelled me to retrace it, and to enter upon a path the goal of which was Death!
Death has but few terrors for the crushed and broken spirit, but how heavy and icy is his hand when it grasps the heart which has just begun to live and revel in the joys of life. ”

“ Death, which we contemplate as the King of Terrors, threatening us with his uplifted dart, and destined to drag us away from the stage of life, bright with its tawdry tinsel, and its garish splendour, came to her in softer and more kindly guise. ”

“ Death, who, bursting from his sunless home, mouldy with the dew of darkness, springs upon the unwary traveler, and bears him swiftly to the spirit land—this Death, walking with ceaseless tread along his dismal pathway, has a strange and, to us, uncanny taste for music. ”

“ Call the death by any name your Highness will, attribute it to whom you will, or say it might have been prevented how you will, it is the same death eternally—inborn, inbred, engendered in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that only—spontaneous combustion, and none other of all the deaths that can be died. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is as though some weary mortal of a past age laid down to rest, Death coming this way blew upon him his icy breath and froze him into perpetual silence, then gently enshrouding him in purest whiteness passed on, leaving him to the peacefulness of endless sleep. ”

“ And yet it is so human and so true a thought: what then does Death take from us except fleshly statues, what from our eyes but the loved countenance, what from our ears but the dear voice, and the warm bosom from our own? ”

“ The same in mind and heart,
Nor joy, nor grief, nor time, nor place,
Nor life, nor death can part.
But let us hasten to the day
Which shall our flesh restore,
When death shall all be done away,
And bodies part no more! ”

“ Yes, Death is newest of all and least considered in the counsels of men—Death, who comes silent-footed at all moments, who brushes us with his sleeve as he passes us by, who plucks us warningly by the cloak lest we should forget his presence—he, too, will surprise us at the last. ”

“ Come, lovely and soothing Death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate Death. ”

“ Death draws a veil alike over the virtues and vices of life. Let us hope and pray.—M.
To him Life was a long combat, Death a glorious victory.—M.
Weakness yields to strength,—the Creature surrenders to the Creator.—M.
Death is the shadowy twilight which is the presage of a fadeless dawn.—M.
Death is a goal never, a gate ever.—M.
Death brings a long night of dreamless slumber, awakening to an endless morn.—M.
"Seed sown in the field of God, to ripen unto immortality." ”

“ 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. ”

“ And fate descend in sudden night
On manhood’s middle day.
Heber.
Death’s but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever pass to God;
A port of calms, a state to ease
From the rough rage of swelling seas.
Parnell.
Happy the babe, who, privileged by fate
To shorter labour, and a lighter weight,
Received but yesterday the gift of breath,
Ordered to-morrow to return to Death.
Prior.
Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind’s breath,
And stars to set—but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!
Mrs. Hemans.
[173]
O what is Death? ”

“ If Death itself had passed by they would not have glanced after it with greater awe. For until then Death had been known unto the dead only and life unto the living and there had been no bridge between the twain. ”

“ Canst thou behold the realms of those who die?
Where dwells the spirit e'er its mortal birth,
E'er yet it suffereth
The pain and sorrow incident to earth?
Where after death?
The Sun gave answer, with refulgent glow:
Child of a fleeting hour, thou too must die to know.
Canst tell, thou jeweled canopy of space,
Bewildering, and boundless to the eyes,
Knowest thou the unborn spirits' dwelling place?
Knowest thou the distant regions of the skies
Where rest the spirits freed from mundane strife,
From mortal grief and care?
Knowest thou the secret of the future life? ”

“ I hear you ask the question, 'Can this be death?' To whom or to what do you address this enquiry? To your conscience, for you believe yourself to be alone; you are unconscious that I am present 'Can this be death?' I convince myself, and you. It is death. ”

“ Why wilt thou die? and so often sworn to my soul Vivit Dominus, As the Lord liveth I would not have thee die but live,—will neither let me die nor let me live, but die an everlasting life and live an everlasting death ”

“ Dost thou remember? Ah, such death as this
Had set the seal upon my heart's young bliss!
But, wrenched asunder, severed and apart,
Life knew a deadlier death: the blighting smart
⁠Which only kills the heart. ”

“ Tell me where I can escape death; discover for me the country, show me the men to whom I must go, whom death does not visit. Discover to me a charm against death. If I have not one, what do you wish me to do? I cannot escape from death. Shall I not escape from the fear of death, but shall I die lamenting and trembling? ”

“ Oh! for a thousand tongues to declare the truths which are now fast dawning upon my bewildered mind! Death, the great leveller, need have no more terrors for us, for it has been conquered by the Great Spirit, in giving us a never-ending life in the glorious spheres of immortal bliss. ”

“ Then, when body and soul are fitted for the change, there comes what ordinary mortals call death; and the pure being closes his eyes, to awake forthwith in his original glory from the sleep which mortals call life. ”

“ We stand at death’s dim gates Where his mighty soul awaits Somewhere the long, long silence of the years. And the marble of his lips Doth all our woe eclipse, Death’s awful peace rolls back upon our tears.
Greater than all sorrow That our hearts can borrow; Loftier than our fleeting, human praise, [Pg 190] He hath calmness, great and grim, That death hath granted him, The wisest and the mightiest of our days. ”

“ One had heard and read a great deal about death, and even seen a little of it, and knew by heart the thousand commonplaces of religion and poetry which seemed to deaden one's senses and veil the horror. Society being immortal, could put on immortality at will. Adams being mortal, felt only the mortality. Death took features altogether new to him, in these rich and sensuous surroundings. Nature enjoyed it, played with it, the horror added to her charm, she liked the torture, and smothered her victim with caresses. Never had one seen her so winning. ”

“ 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. ”