Hence, again to quote Browning, whom I love and revere for his great helpfulness:
I would hate that Death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old;
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay, glad, life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
I want to meet death in just that spirit; open-eyed, in full possession of my senses, if that be possible, that I may have full cognizance of the experience as I pass through it. But let it come as it may, I want to be ready to meet and greet it.
In many of his poems Walt Whitman fully expresses my conceptions, and Joaquin Miller's many sweet poems reëcho the thoughts that come to me, again and again, as I contemplate the sleep that has no earthly awakening. Take his beautiful River of Rest:
A beautiful stream is the River of Rest;