Everybody knows the
lines, yet we may once more touch our souls with solemnity by quoting
them:
"Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod, and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling!--'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death."
There is no more to be said in that particular line of reflection; the
speech is flawless in its gruesome power, and every piercing word
seems to leap from a shuddering soul. The other utterance which is fit
to be matched with Shakspere's was written by Charles Lamb.
"Whatsoever thwarts or puts me out of my way brings death into my
mind. All partial evils, like humours, run into that capital
plague-sore. I have heard some profess an indifference to life.
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