In neither case, however, can death be regarded as an evil. To wish that
youth and strength were unaffected by time might be a different matter.
"But if we are not destined to be immortal, yet it is a desirable thing
for a man to expire at his fit time. For, as nature prescribes a boundary
to all other things, so does she also to life. Now old age is the
consummation of life, just as of a play: from the fatigue of which we
ought to escape, especially when satiety is super-added." [5]
From this point of view, then, we need
"Weep not for death,
'Tis but a fever stilled,
A pain suppressed,--a fear at rest,
A solemn hope fulfilled.
The moonshine on the slumbering deep
Is scarcely calmer. Wherefore weep?"
"Weep not for death!
The fount of tears is sealed,
Who knows how bright the inward light
To those closed eyes revealed?
Who knows what holy love may fill
The heart that seems so cold and still."
Many a weary soul will have recurred with comfort to the thought that
"A few more years shall roll,
A few more seasons come,
And we shall be with those that rest
Asleep within the tomb.
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