Death upon his face

Is rather shine than shade,

A tender shine by looks beloved made.

1055 Mrs. Browning: The Seraphim. Pt. ii Thus o'er the dying lamp th' unsteady flame, Hangs quivering on the point, leaps off by fits And falls again, as loth to quit its hold. 1056

Addison: Cato. Act iii Sc 2

The prince, who kept the world in awe,
The judge, whose dictate fix'd the law,
The rich, the poor, the great, the small,
Are levell'd: death confounds 'em all.

1057

Gay: Fables. Pt. ii. Fable 16

There taught us how to live; and (oh! too high The price for knowledge) taught us how to die. 1058

Tickell: On the Death of Addison. Line 81. The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear, Death still draws nearer, never seeming near. 1059

Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. iii. Line 75

O Death, all eloquent! you only prove
What dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love.
1060

Pope: Eloisa to A. Line 335

How loved, how honored once, avails thee not;
To whom related, or by whom begot;

A heap of dust alone remains of thee;

'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

1061 Pope: Elegy to Mem. of Unfortunate Lady. Line 71

By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,

By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd,

By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,

By strangers honor'd, and by strangers mourn'd.

1062 Pope: Elegy to Mem. of Unfortunate Lady. Line 51. But thousands die without or this or that,

Die, and endow a college or a cat.

1063

Pope: Moral Essays. Epis. iii. Line 95.

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heav'n opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
1064

Pope: Dying Christian to His Soul

Death is the gate of life.
1065
Bailey: Festus. Sc. Colonnade and Lawn
The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileged beyond the common walk

Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.

1066

Young: Night Thoughts. Night ii. Line 633

Man makes a death, which nature never made.
1067
Young: Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 15
The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,
The deep, damp vault, the darkness, and the worm.
These are the bugbears of a winter's eve,
The terrors of the living, not the dead.

1068

Young: Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 10. Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay; And if in death still lovely, lovelier there; Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love. 1069 Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow. 1070

Young: Night Thoughts. Night iii. Line 104.

Young: Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 1011 Death is the crown of life: Were death denied, poor man would live in vain; Were death denied, to live would not be life; Were death denied, e'en fools would wish to die. 1071 Young: Night Thoughts. Night iii. Line 526. Death wounds to cure: we fall; we rise; we reign! Spring from our fetters; fasten in the skies; Where blooming Eden withers in our sight: Death gives us more than was in Eden lost. This king of terrors is the prince of peace. 1072 Young: Night Thoughts. Night iii. Line 530. Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew, She sparkled, was exhal'd, and went to heaven. 1073

Young: Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 600.

A death-bed's the detector of the heart:
Here tired dissimulation drops her mask,

Through life's grimace, that mistress of the scene,
Here real and apparent are the same.

1074

Young: Night Thoughts. Night fi. Line 641.

Can storied urn, or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?
1075

Gray: Elegy. St. 10

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour,

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
1076

Gray: Elegy. St. 9

How shocking must thy summons be, O death!
To him that is at ease in his possessions;
Who, counting on long years of pleasure here,
Is quite unfurnish'd for that world to come!
1077

Blair: Grave. Line 350.

All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades
Like the fair flower dishevell'd in the wind;
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream;
The man we celebrate must find a tomb,
And we that worship him, ignoble graves.
1078

Cowper: Task. Bk. iii. Line 261

Yet 'twill only be a sleep:
When, with songs and dewy light,
Morning blossoms out of Night,
She will open her blue eyes
'Neath the palms of Paradise
While we foolish oues shall weep.

1079

Edward Rowland Sill: Sleeping.

Death, so call'd, is a thing which makes men weep,
And yet a third of life is pass'd in sleep.

1080 Death shuns the wretch who fain the blow would meet.

Byron Don Juan. Canto xiv. St. 3

1081 "Whom the gods love die young," was said of yore, And many deaths do they escape by this:

Byron: Don Juan. Canto i. St. 197.

The death of friends, and that which slays even more,
The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is,
Except mere breath.

1082 Death is but what the haughty brave, The weak must bear, the wretch must crave. 1083 Byron Giaour. Line 1032. What shall he be ere night? Perchance a thing O'er which the raven flaps her funeral wing. 1084

Byron: Don Juan. Canto iv. St. 12.

I live,

Byron: Corsair. Canto ii. St. 16.

But live to die: and living, see no thing

To make death hateful, save an innate clinging,
A loathsome and yet all invincible
Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I
Despise myself, yet cannot overcome
And so I live.

1085

Byron: Cain. Act i. Sc. 1

And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to earth!

Though earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

1086

Byron: And Thou art Dead, etc.

O Death, what art thou? a Lawgiver that never altereth, Fixing the consummating seal, whereby the deeds of life become established;

O Death, what art thou? a stern and silent usher,

Leading to the judgment for Eternity, after the trial scene of Time;

O Death, what art thou? an husbandman that reapeth always,

Out of season, as in season, with the sickle in his hand.

1090

Tupper: Proverbial Phil. Of Death.

1092

Macaulay: Lays Anc. Rome. Horatius. xxvii

Emerson: Good-Bye.

Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home;
Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.
1093
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

1094
Since, howe'er protracted, death will come,
Why fondly study, with ingenious pains,
To put it off? To breathe a little longer
Is to defer our fate, but not to shun it.
Small gain! which wisdom with indiff'rent eye
Beholds.

Scott: Lady of the Lake. Canto i. St. 31

1095

Hannah More: David and Goliath. Pt. iv

Leaves have their times to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath,
And stars to set - but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O death.

1096

Mrs. Hemans: Hour of Death

I think poor beggars court St. Giles,

Rich beggars court St. Stephen;

And Death looks down with nods and smiles,
And makes the odds all even:

I think some die upon the field,

And some upon the billow,

And some are laid beneath a shield,
And some beneath a willow.

1097

Praed: Brazen Head. St. 12

Death! to the happy thou art terrible,

But how the wretched love to think of thee,
O thou true comforter, the friend of all
Who have no friend beside.

1098

Southey: Joan of Arc. Bk. i. Line 326.

Our very hopes belied our fears,

Our fears our hopes belied;

We thought her dying when she slept,

And sleeping when she died.

1099

Hood: The Death-Bed.

We watched her breathing through the night,

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

1100

Hood: The Death-Bed

Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb
In life's happy morning hath hid from our eyes,

Ere sin threw a blight o'er the spirit's young bloom,
Or earth had profaned what was born for the skies.
Death chill'd the fair fountain ere sorrow had stain'd it,
"Twas frozen in all the pure light of its course,

And but sleeps till the sunshine of heaven has unchain'd it
To water that Eden where first was its source.