Death Is Busy Everywhere
Death is here and death is there.
Death is busy everywhere,
All around, within, beneath,
Above is death—and we are death.
Death hath set his mark and seal
On all we are and all we feel,
On all we know and all we fear
…
First our pleasures die—and then
Our hopes, and then our fears—and when
These are dead, the debt is due,
Dust claims dust—and we die too.
All things that we love and cherish,
Like ourselves must fade and perish,
Such is our rude mortal lot—
Love itself would, did they not.
—Percy B. Shelley.
By A Bierside
This is a sacred city built of marvelous earth.
Life was lived nobly here to give such beauty birth.
Beauty was in this brain and in this eager hand;
Death is so blind and dumb, Death does not understand.
Death drifts the brain with dust and soils the young limbs’ glory.
Death makes justice a dream, and strength a traveler’s story.
Death drives the lovely soul to wander under the sky.
Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die.
—John Masefield.
I Shall See God
For I know that my Vindicator liveth,
And that He shall stand at last upon the earth;
And after my skin hath been thus destroyed,
Yet without my flesh shall I see God!
Whom I shall see on my side,
And mine eyes shall behold and not another.
—My reins are consumed within me—
—Job.
(Job thus ends his speech; he is unable to go on.)
Alternate Reading: II Peter 1: 2-21.