Death and Mourning

I long to talk with some old lover’s ghost,

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Because I could not stop for Death—

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

He’d make a lovely corpse.

Look thy last on all things lovely.

However many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead.

An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last instalment missing.

We perished, each alone:

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

The horror! The horror!

Life is a horizontal fall.

For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,

Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland.

Your ashen hair Shulamith we shovel a grave in the air there you won’t lie too cramped.

Someone spoke of your death, Heraclitus. It brought me

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

So he passed over, and the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.

I am going to my Fathers, and tho’ with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword, I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me, that I have fought his battles, who will now be my rewarder.

I’ll die young, but it’s like kissing God.

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,