The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has pressed
In their bloom;
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
Behold—not him we knew!
This was the prison which his soul looked through.
Holmes—The Last Look.
And they die
An equal death,—the idler and the man
Of mighty deeds.
He slept an iron sleep,—
Slain fighting for his country.
One more unfortunate
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!
Hood—Bridge of Sighs.
We watch'd her breathing thro' the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
- * * *
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied;
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
Hood—The Death-bed.
Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
Regumque turres.
Pale death, with impartial step, knocks at
the hut of the poor and the towers of kings.
Horace—Carmina. I. 4. 13.
Omnes una manet nox,
Et calcanda semel via leti.
One night is awaiting us all, and the way of
death must be trodden once.
Horace—Carmina. I. 28. 15.
Omnes eodem cogimur; omnium
Versatur urna serius, ocius
Sors exitura.
We are all compelled to take the same road;
from the urn of death, shaken for all, sooner
or later the lot must come forth.
Horace—Carmina. II. 3. 25.
Omne capax movet urna nomcn.
In the capacious urn of death, every name
is shaken.
Horace—Carmina. III. 1. 16.
Cita mors ruit.
Swift death rushes upon us.
Horace. Adapted from Sat. 1. 8.
We all do fade as a leaf.
Isaiah. LXIV. 6.
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken
away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
Job. I. 21.
He shall return no more to his house, neither
shall his place know him any more.
Job. VU. 10.
The land of darkness and the shadow of death.
Job. X. 21.
Then with no fiery throbbing pain,
No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
And freed his soul the nearest way.
| author = Samuel Johnson
| work = Verses on the Death of Mr.
Robert Level. St. 9. ("No fiery throbs of
pain" in first ed.)
Thou art but gone before,
Whither the world must follow.
Ben Jonson—Epitaph on Sir John Roe. In
Dodd's Epigrammatists. P. 190.
Mors sola fatetur
Quantula sint hominum corpuscula.
Death alone discloses how insignificant are
the puny bodies of men.
Juvenal—Satires. X. 172.
Trust to a plank, draw precarious breath,
At most seven inches from the jaws of death.
Juvenal—Satires. XII. 57. Gdtord's trans.
| seealso = (See also Du Bartas, Lucretius, Twelfth
Night)
| topic = Death
| page = 170
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Nemo impetrare potest a papa bullam nunquam moriendi.
No one can obtain from the Pope a dispensation for never dying.
Thomas a Kf.mpis.
| seealso = (See also Moliere)
Nay, why should I fear Death,
Who gives us life, and in exchange takes breath?
Frederic L. Knowles—Laus Mortis.
When I have folded up this tent
And laid the soiled thing by,
I shall go forth 'neat h different stars,
Under an unknown sky.
Frederic L. Knowles—The Last Word.
Gone before
To that unknown and silent shore.
Lamb—Hester. St. 1.
One destin'd period men in common have,
The great, the base, the coward, and the brave,
All food alike for worms, companions in the grave.
Lord Lansdowne—Meditation on Death.
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at
with a steady eye.
La Rochefoucauld—Maxims. 36.
