Quotes
Quotes about Death
Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud--and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word. But in the night of Death Hope sees a star and listening Love can hear the rustling of a wing.
Is there beyond the silent night
An endless day?
Is death a door that leads to light?
We cannot say.
Masters, I have to tell a tale of woe,
A tale of folly and of wasted life,
Hope against hope, the bitter dregs of strife,
Ending, where all things end, in death at last.
Rejoice, lest pleasureless ye die.
Within a little time must ye go by.
Stretch forth your open hands, and while ye live
Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give!
This Life is a fleeting breath,
And whither and how shall I go,
When I wander away with Death
By a path that I do not know?
That was indeed to live--
At one bold swoop to wrest
From darkling death the best
That Death to Life can give!
The Angel of Death is the invisible Angel of Life.
Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time with a gift of tears,
Grief with a glass that ran,
Pleasure with pain for leaven,
Summer with flowers that fell,
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And Madness risen from hell,
Strength without hands to smite,
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.
At the door of life by the gate of breath,
There are worse things waiting for men than death.
Life is a mystery as deep as ever death can be;
Yet oh, how dear it is to us, this life we live and see!
But I believe that God is overhead
And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.
Hushed in the alabaster arms of Death
Our young Marcellus sleeps.
She throws a kiss, and bids me run
In whispers sweet as roses' breath;
I know I can not win the race,
And at the end, I know, is death.
Why should I stay? Nor seed nor fruit have I,
But, sprung at once to beauty's perfect round,
Nor loss nor gain nor change in me is found,--
A life-complete in death-complete to die.
From the winter's gray despair,
From the summer's golden languor,
Death, the lover of Life,
Frees us for ever.
Death is an angel with two faces:
To us he turns
A face of terror, blighting all things fair;
The other burns
With glory of the stars, and love is there.
Yea, howso we dream,
Or how bravely we do;
The end is the same,
Be we traitor or true:
And after the bloom
And the passion is past
Death comes at last.
Though this may be play to you,
'T is death to us.
When all the blandishments of life are gone,
The coward sneaks to death, the brave live on.
Our days begin with trouble here,
Our life is but a span,
And cruel death is always near,
So frail a thing is man.
Night, having Sleep, the brother of Death.
Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts:
Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured
Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed
By hymns of praise. From him alone of all
The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.
O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray,
To come to me: of cureless ills thou art
The one physician. Pain lays not its touch
Upon a corpse.
Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot.
Old men's prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.
