Mute

“ Where the sun is.
2nd Corpse.
O foolish ragged-bones,
Wouldst thou show forth thy dripping excrements,
And shredded rottenness to the face of day?—
Stink and be still, and leave us here in peace.
1st Corpse.
Envy me not, O stench, slop-face, dung-eyes;
My bones are clean and dry as the tomb's walls,
And stink not; as for thee, thou art a sink.
2nd Corpse.
Envy me not, thou, that I am so sweet
The black worms love me; hungry were that worm
That on thee preys.
4th Corpse.
Be silent, both ye dead and rotten things ”

“ And the worms' gnawing, and thy body's rottenness,
And the rottenness in thy bones and in thy brain!
1st Corpse.
O beautiful, O dead, O spit upon,
He speaketh well that is but lately dead;
Thy flesh lies all along thee like green slime,
O pudding gravied in thine own dead sauce!
2nd Corpse.
Rotten one!
1st Corpse.
Dung-heap!
2nd Corpse.
Dead one!
1st Corpse.
Beast! beast! beast!
Therefore perhaps, thou art so early dead?
2nd Corpse.
They say that those thou lovedst were not men,
O goat-face—Shall I say what was thy death?
4th Corpse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I screamed, screamed in utter horror at the thing I saw there. Dead? Good God, I do not know. It was a corpse, a dead human body, standing before me like some propped-up thing from the grave. A face half eaten away, terrible in its leering grin. Twisted mouth, with only a suggestion of lips, curled back over broken teeth. Hair—writhing, distorted—like a mass of moving, bloody coils. ”

“ 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. ”

“ His soul walks not by the side of the master of the funeral ceremonies. To moulder under marble, or to moulder under clay, 'tis still to moulder. To have around one's bier children in red and children in blue, or to have not a creature, what matters it? ”

“ Seldom, if ever, does the voice of prayer rise over their bier under these circumstances; in silence the corpse is committed to its rude burial, while now and then a half-suppressed sigh is heard, and the unbidden tears steal down the sunburned cheeks of his manly associates. ”

“ Every one of these breaks in your lifeline shows a moment when you stood face to face with death. Ah, señor, in all my experience I have never seen such an adventurous palm.... You have stood elbow to elbow with death, and yet those little squares about the breaks show a guiding spirit of protection. ”

“ In old woodcuts, the souls of the dying are represented as issuing from the mouth in the form of small human figures; and the Tyrolese peasants still fancy the soul is seen coming out of the mouth of a dying man like a little white cloud. [110] From the mouth of a patient in a London hospital some time since the nurses observed issuing a pale bluish flame, and soon after the man died. The frightened nurses—not being acquainted with the corpse-candle theory of such things—imagined the torments of hell had already begun in the still living body. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Oh, if the cruel shots could only kill at once—but this terrible mutilation, when the soul is almost let out of the gaping wounds, and struggles with the full strength of manhood, till faint and weary—weak with the deluge of blood, which has drained the fountain, the cold hand of dissolution clutches at the heart, and the soul goes forth from the torn body, leaving it a poor lump of festering flesh, on which the worms may banquet at will! ”

“ Do you want to become another Courtlandt Allerton and go rocking down the avenue—a grimacing, tailor-made sepulcher?—the pompous obsequies of a dead intellect?—a funeral on two wavering legs, carrying the corpse of all that should be deathless in a man? ”

“ Are you ready, sir?
DUKE.
Ay; prithee, sing.
[Music]
SONG CLOWN.
Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!
DUKE.
There 's for thy pains. ”

“ Can the breath Of very heaven bid these bones revive, Open the graves, and clothe the ribs of death? Yea, Prophesy, the Lord hath said again: Say to the wind, come forth and breathe afresh, Even that they may live, upon these slain, And bone to bone shall leap, and flesh to flesh. The spirit is not dead, proclaim the word. Where lay dead bones a host of armed men stand! ”

“ 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”? ”

“ Upon the tangled grass.—But then there came
The damp clod harshly on the coffin-lid,
Curdling the life-blood at the mourner's heart,
While audibly it spake to every ear
"There is a time to die." ”

“ Most of the instances on record, and particularly those from lay journals, are vivid exaggerations, drawn from possibly such a trivial sign as a corpse found with the fist tightly clenched or the face distorted, which are the inspiration of the horrible details of the dying struggles of the person in the coffin. ”

“ More dead perhaps than He, than the other Man, whose corpse I see, I persist in seeing there inside its coffin ... a terribly wasted corpse, frightfully decomposed. More dead than He, because He does not know that He is dead ”

“ He cannot surely have a drop of blood within his veins, who would not feel it boil with indignation to witness such a sight. And yet their fate was envied by the others, who glided through the world like mummies, in the springtime of their days, and hourly, slowly faded into death. ”

“ When the faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying,
When the twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,
When the breath ceases and the pulse of the heart ceases,
Then the corpse-limbs stretch on the bed, and the living look upon them,
They are 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. ”

“ There was a youthful forehead under the brown hair, an almost indignant knitting of the eyebrows, pinched nostrils, closed eyelids, the lashes glued together by the rime, and from the corners of the eyes to the corners of the mouth extended a channel of frozen tears. The snow lighted up the corpse. Winter and death are not unlike; the corpse is a human circle. ”

“ He saw long arms above the casket, tearing away the figure of a struggling girl.... And then he knew he was alone....
he sound of the bell rose to the piercing, nerve-shredding scream he had heard before. He must think fast—and act!—but the numbness of brain and muscle was creeping upon him. He tried to call out, but his throat was tight, and would not respond. The echoes died into silence; the vibrations, as before, passed beyond audible range. ”

“ He, like the choked-to-death, whose eyes bulge out, who bleeds at the ears, whose tongue is so largely swollen that it won't stay in his blood-slavered mouth—he, too, I say, has sent a soul prematurely cross-lots home ”

“ Or that thy coarse corrupts in earths dark wombe,
Or that thy beauties lie in wormie bed,
Hid from the world in a low delved tombe;
Could Heav'n for pittie thee so strictly doom?
Oh no? for something in thy face did shine
Above mortalitie that shew'd thou wast divine. ”

“ Death comes in an instant and changes that bright creature in her white and rich attire into a black-robed mourner. He takes off the bridal ornaments and clothes her with the colours of bereavement. There is darkness in the once cheerful room, and the waiting-women sing their long dirges. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What sort of death would one meet with widely-opened eyes, parted lips, and brows bent as though to rally fast-flying courage? Not a peaceful death surely. I brought my black coat to my aid. "My dear lady, you must not think of such things. Death is but a sleep, you know. Why anticipate a nightmare?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was the spirit, the life, hovering above the death bed, there was the spiritual body only partially enveloped by the mutilated remains, and there was the mortal body dismembered and cold in death. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the body escaped mutilation, seldom did the heart go to the grave unscarred. ”

“ Then, as well as he could, the dying man stretched forth his arms, wherein flesh and blood alike were lacking, and with all the strength remaining in his bones embraced her who was the cause of his death. ”

“ If they visit where there is a dead body, or accompany a funeral, show them the dead body as covered with earth in the grave, or an animal that has been killed, and say, “God destroyed them because of wickedness.” ”

“ Death seems to me such a little withered, contemptible figure, for ever jealous of Love—yet sometimes death seems to me like a white marble portico, seen down an alley of cypress trees, under a sky all dark with autumn. ”

“ The sorcerer perceived the mourner, and approached the spot where he was lying.
“Wherefore, fond wretch, dost thou grieve thus, for what is now a hideous mass of mortality—mere bones, and nerves, and veins? Nations have fallen unlamented; even worlds themselves, long ere this globe of ours was created, have mouldered into nothing; nor hath any one wept over them: why then should thou indulge this vain affliction for a child of the dust—a being as frail as thyself, and like thee the creature but of a moment?” ”

“ A corpse lies bounding in a hearse,
And friends and relatives disperse,
And are not stirred.
Those living dead up in their rooms
Must note how partial are the tombs,
That take men back into their wombs
While theirs must fast. ”

“ Death, we may remark, was always a prominent feature of annuals. Their artists and poets vied with one another in the selection of mortuary subjects. Charles Lamb was first “hooked into the ‘Gem’” with some lines on the editor’s dead infant. From a partial list, extending over a dozen years, I cull this funeral wreath:—
The Dying Child. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They suggest, however, the preparation of the body by weeping women, the solemn procession to the place of burning, the laying of the body upon the tall funeral pile, and the touch of the flaming torch held by the son of the departed, amid the lamentations of sorrowing friends standing around. ”

“ These men and women bore upon their shoulders a trestle covered with a mattress on which lay an invalid of cadaverous appearance, a yellowish-looking creature, thin as a skeleton, tightly wrapped in bands of cloth like a mummy, the feet bare. And the crier—an olive-colored and serpentine man with the eyes of a madman—pointed to the dying woman, and related in a high key that this woman, who had been ill from hemorrhage for years, had obtained the miracle from the Virgin at the very dawn of that day, and he begged for alms so that, cured of her disease, she could gain fresh blood. ”

“ When a death occurs, the relations immediately set up the wooliah woo; or death scream. This cry is caught up, from house to house, and hundreds of women are instantly gathered to the spot. They come to scream and mourn with the bereaved. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On these occasions they vanish, but presently appear again behind the observer, and hold on their course. If a little candle is seen, of a pale or bluish colour, then follows the corpse, either of an abortive, or some infant; if a large one, then the corpse of some one come to age. ”