Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all.
King Lear, Act v. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
This fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest.
Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.
King John, Act iv. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
That we shall die we know: 't is but the time
And drawing days out, that men stand upon.
Julius Cæsar, Act iii. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Our days begin with trouble here,
Our life is but a span,
And cruel death is always near,
So frail a thing is man.
New England Primer.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
The hour concealed, and so remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
Essay on Man, Epistle III. A. POPE.
The tongues of dying men
Enforce attention, like deep harmony:
When words are scarce, they're seldom spent in vain;
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
K. Richard II., Act ii. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
A death-bed's a detector of the heart:
Here tired dissimulation drops her mask,
Through life's grimace that mistress of the scene;
Here real and apparent are the same.
Night Thoughts, Night II. DR. E. YOUNG.
The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
Night Thoughts. Night II. DR. E. YOUNG.