The Meaning Of Death
Death is the gate of life.
—John Milton.
Facing The Inevitable Cheerfully
All that breathe will share
Thy destiny in death. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men—
The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man—
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realm of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who raps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
—William Cullen Bryant.
Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither: Ripeness is all.
—William Shakespeare.
No Death But Change
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.
—Henry W. Longfellow.
Alternate Reading: Hebrews 12:1-13.