To be no more--sad cure; for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion?
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
Death is delightful. Death is dawn,
The waking from a weary night
Of fevers unto truth and light.
_Even So_. J. MILLER.
No, no! The energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagged not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing--only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.
_Immortality_. M. ARNOLD.
God keeps a niche
In Heaven, to hold our idols; and albeit
He brake them to our faces, and denied
That our close kisses should impair their white,--
I know we shall behold them raised, complete,
The dust swept from their beauty, glorified,
New Memnons singing in the great God-light.
_Futurity with the Departed_. E.B. BROWNING.
The wisest men are glad to die; no fear
Of death can touch a true philosopher.
Death sets the soul at liberty to fly.
_Continuation of Lucan_. T. MAY.
Alas! for love, if thou art all,
And naught beyond, O Earth!
_The Graves of a Household_. MRS. F. HEMANS.
'Tis not the whole of life to live:
Nor all of death to die.
_The Issues of Life and Death_. J. MONTGOMERY.
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
_Elegy on Mrs. Killegrew_. J. DRYDEN.