Mort

“ Rest once was theirs, who had crossed the mortal brink:
⁠No rest, no reverence now: dull fools undress
⁠Death's holiest shrine, life's veriest nakedness.
ii.
A man was born, sang, suffered, loved, and died.
⁠Men scorned him living: let us praise him dead. ”

“ Death his death’s wound shall then receive, and stoop
Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed;
I through the ample air in triumph high
Shall lead Hell captive maugre Hell, and show
The powers of darkness bound. Thou, at the sight
Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile,
While, by thee raised, I ruin all my foes;
Death last, and with his carcase glut the grave ”

“ 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. ”

“ The dead appeal to us by the mesmeric agency of their immortality; they throw out, through every movement of the world’s circumstances and events, a suggestion of their needs, their condition, and their destiny. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Since the period of which I now write, I have often witnessed the closing scene of mortality, and various are the opinions I have heard, as to which point of time, between the moment of death and the first appearance abroad of the survivors in their mourning apparel, is the saddest, the most afflicting, or the most trying—whether the moment of dissolution, the first appearance of the undertaker, the laying out in the apparel of death, the bringing of the coffin, the last frantic kiss and look, the screwing down, the carrying out, the dull thud of the clay upon the coffin lid. ”

“ Death consists, indeed, in a repeated process of unrobing, or unsheathing. The immortal part of man shakes off from itself, one after the other, its outer casings, and—as the snake from its skin, the butterfly from its chrysalis—emerges from one after another, passing into a higher state of consciousness. ”

“ So also the mere mortuary fact by no means serves as a free ticket or pass into the grand Temple, at the mere vestibule of which grim Death lands those who take passage in the phantom shallop, whereof himself is pilot and steersman. ”

“ Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,
Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murthers have been perform'd
Too terrible for the ear. The time has been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murthers on their crowns,
And push us from our stools. This is more strange
Than such a murther is. ”

“ Thou art my God!
"To thee I pour my tears for sacrifice morning
"and evening: my days are covered with sorrow!
"shut up, darkened: by night I am deceived!
"Who says that thou wast born of mortal kind?
"Destruction was thy father, a lioness suckled
"thee, thy young hands tore human limbs, and
"gorged human flesh! Come hither, Death ”

“ 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. ”

“ And so in this sense of the words, this exitus mortis, the issue of death, is liberatio in morte, A deliverance in death; Not that God will deliver us from dying, but that hee will have a care of us in the houre of death, of what kinde soever our passage be. ”

“ A true saying, Timor mortis, morte pejor, the fear of death is worse than death itself, and the memory of that sad hour, to some fortunate and rich men, “is as bitter as gall,” Eccl. ”

“ Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die—to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. ”

“ One eye on Death, and one full fix’d on heaven,
Becomes a mortal, and immortal man. ”

“ Cease, cease, wayward Mortal! I dare not unveil
The shadows that float o'er Eternity's vale;
Nought waits for the good but a spirit of Love,
That will hail their blest advent to regions above.
For Love, Mortal, gleams through the gloom of my sway, _25
And the shades which surround me fly fast at its ray. ”

“ For we must know that it is the morose dwelling of the thoughts upon an injury, a long and sullen meditation upon a wrong, that incorporates and rivets it into the mind.—South, Sermons, vol. x. p. 278.
Mortal. We speak still of a ‘mortal’ sin or a ‘mortal’ wound, but the active sense has nearly departed from the word, as the passive has altogether departed from ‘deadly,’ which see. ”

“ Whenever it came, a heavy numbing throb seemed to take hold of my heart, and say, 'Dead—dead—dead.' And I cried out, 'The living, the living shall praise Thee O God; the dead cannot praise Thee. [16] There is no work in the grave; [17] in the night no man can work. ”

“ I pray for thee no more:
The corpse’s tongue is still;
Its folded fingers point to heaven,
But point there stiff and chill:
No farther wrong, no farther woe
Hath licence from the sin below
Its tranquil heart to thrill.
I charge thee, by the living’s prayer,
And the dead’s silentness,
To wring from out thy soul a cry
Which God shall hear and bless!
Lest Heaven’s own palm droop in my hand,
And pale among the saints I stand,
A saint companionless. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Do the dead return? Are the dead indeed dead? You have nailed down the coffin-lid; you have seen the coffin as it sunk into the grave; you have heard the rattling of the clod,—but is that all? Is the beloved one whom you have given to the grave, indeed dead, or only more truly living in a new body, formed of refined matter, invisible to our gross organs? Is that which we call soul, only the result of a particular organization of gross matter, or is it the real, eternal substance of which all other matter is but the servant and the expression? Do the dead return? ”

“ We look on death as on a common object;
The tongue nor faulters, nor the cheek turns pale,
Nor the calm eye is mov'd at sight of him:
We court, and we embrace him undismay'd;
We smile at tortures if they lead to glory,
And only cowardice and guilt appal us.
Ham. Fine sophistry! the valour of the tongue,
The heart disclaims it; leave this pomp of words,
And cease dissembling with a friend like me.
I know that life is dear to all who live,
That death is dreadful,—yes, and must be fear'd,
E'en by the frozen apathists of Rome. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ For how can they be after death if they be in death, especially when we do not even call them dying, as we call those in sleep, sleeping; and those in languor, languishing; and those in grief, grieving; and those in life, living? And yet the dead, until they rise again, are said to be in death, but cannot be called dying. ”

“ Death is splendid—necessary and divine! It makes life young again! Ah, do not give your tears! Through all the centuries that you have wept, who has seen them, who has heard them flow? Give your blood! If blood is as a hideous spot upon the face of the hangmen, it shines upon the face of martyrs as an eternal sun! ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 takes the good, the beautiful, and the young—and spares me. The Pestilence that wastes, the Arrow that strikes, the Sea that drowns, the Grave that closes over Love and Hope, are steps of my journey, and take me nearer and nearer to the End. ”

“ Wouldst thou have asked aught else from any god Whether with gleaming feet on earth he trod Or thundered through the skies — aught else for share Of mortal good, than in thy soul to bear The growth of song, and feel the sweet unrest Of the world's spring-tide in thy conscious breast? No, thou hadst grasped thy lot with all its pain, Nor loosed it any painless lot to gain Where music's voice was silent; for thy fate Was human music's self incorporate: Thy senses' keenness and thy passionate strife Were flesh of her flesh and her womb of life. ”

“ 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.
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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. ”

“ The illustrations to the Arte del bene Morire comprise a hideous outline cut of Death, scythe on shoulder, flying over ground strewn with corpses (this is enclosed in a large black border used by Mischomini in 1492) , and cuts of Death showing a young man Heaven and Hell, [13] of a sick man with his good and bad angels watching him and Death standing without the door, and of a dying man attended by a friar, Death sitting now at his bed's foot, and the angels watching as before. ”

“ Thou should have laid me my in quiet grave,
Sorrowing calm;
And I with folded palm.
But now above thine own behold I rave!
With all thy life before thee so to die,
Unseasonably!
"Whom the gods love die young;" ”

“ For when death enters, O! how the unkindnesses, and jealousies, and rivalries of life do vanish, and how like incense from an altar do peace, and friendship, and all the sweet charities of our nature, rise around the corpse which was once a man! ”

“ 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 does not reveal the secrets of life. A corpse riding post fills me with horror; bones, bleached and light, are easily moved: they will be less fatigued by this last journey than when I dragged them hither and thither, laden with the burden of my cares. ”

“ With a little coffin six by three and a grief you can’t control?
Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse that looks at you with a grin,
And that seems to say: “You may try all day, but you’ll never jam me in”? ”

“ 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. ”

“ But lives and grows
Within us as a penetrating ray
Of sunshine on a crystal surface glows
With many-hued refraction. He has fled
Into the unknown silence of the night,
But cannot die till human hearts are dead. ”