Thy eyes' windows fall,

Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;

Each part, deprived of supple government,

I must yield my body to the earth:

Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle;
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept;
Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading
tree,

And kept low shrubs from winter's pow'rful wind.

SHAKSPEARE.

Disturb him not; let him pass peaceably. SHAKSPEARE.

I have heard thee say,

No grief did ever come so near thy heart
As when thy lady and thy true love died.
SHAKSPEARE.

Comfort, dear mother: God is much displeased
That you take with unthankfulness his doing;
In common worldly things 'tis called ungrateful
With dull unwillingness to repay a debt
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,
For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
SHAKSPEARE.

He at Venice gave

His body to that pleasant country's earth, And his pure soul unto his captain Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long. SHAKSPEARE.

So shall you hear

Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths, put on by cunning and forced cause.
SHAKSPEARE.

But now the arbitrator of despairs,
Just death, kind umpire of man's miseries,
With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.
SHAKSPEARE.

Let's choose executors, and talk of wills;
And yet not so-for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
SHAKSPEARE.

I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Meetest for death: the weakest kind of fruit

SHAKSPEARE.

Vex not his ghost: oh, let him pass! He hates

him

That would upon the rack of this rough world Stretch him out longer.

Whither it would, so it would let him die.

SIR P. SIDNEY.

The reconciling grave

Swallows distinction first, that made us foes, That all alike lie down in peace together. SOUTHERN: Fatal Marriage.

What a world were this,

How unendurable its weight, if they

Whom Death hath sunder'd did not meet agair!

SOUTHEY.

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!

SOUTHEY: Joan of Arc.

Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day Didst make thy triumph over death and sin, And, having harrow'd hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win.

SPENSER.

The life did flit away out of her nest,
And all his senses were with deadly fit opprest.
SPENSER.

Such life should be the honour of your light; Such death the sad ensample of your night. SPENSER.

And now the prey of fowls he lies;
Nor wail'd of friends, nor laid on groaning bier.
SPENSER.

To dally thus with death is no fit toy: Go find some other playfellows, mine own sweet boy.

Is it not better to die willingly,
Than linger till the glass be all outrun?

SPENSER.

Come then, come soon; come, sweetest death,

to me,

And take away this long lent loathed light: Sharpe be thy wounds, but sweete the medicines be

That long captived soules from weary thraldome free.

SPENSER.

What life refused, to gain by death he thought:
For life and death are but indiff'rent things,
And of themselves not to be shunn'd nor sought,
But for the good or ill that either brings.
EARL OF STIRLING.
Death is the port where all may refuge find,
The end of labour, entry unto rest;
Death hath the bounds of misery confined,
Whose sanctuary shrouds affliction best.
EARL OF STIRLING.

The fools, my juniors by a year,
Are tortured with suspense and fear,
Who wisely thought my age a screen,
When death approach'd to stand between.
SWIFT.

SPENSER.

One year is past,-a different scene! No farther mention of the dean : Who now, alas, no more is mist Than if he never did exist.

Ah! little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment, death,
And all the sad variety of pain!

THOMSON: Seasons.
The best

Are, by the playful children of this world,
At once forgot, as they had never been.

THOMSON: Tancred and Sigismund.