thou true comforter, the friend of all
Who have no friend beside.
_Joan of Arc_. R. SOUTHEY.
I would that I were low laid in my grave;
I am not worth this coil that's made for me.
_King John, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
He gave his honors to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.
_Henry VIII., Act iv. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew;
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter.
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more;
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.
* * * * *
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;
Think not of the rising sun,
For, at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveille.
_Lady of the Lake, Canto I_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further!
_Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Here may the storme-bett vessell safely ryde;
This is the port of rest from troublous toyle,
The worlde's sweet inn from paine and wearisome turmoyle.
_Faerie Queene_. E. SPENSER.
To die is landing on some silent shore,
Where billows never break, nor tempests roar;
Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 't is o'er.
_The Dispensary, Canto III_. SIR S. GARTH.
Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damned grudges; here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.
_Titus Andronicus, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
Let guilt, or fear,
Disturb man's rest, Cato knows neither of them;
Indifferent in his choice, to sleep or die.
_Cato_. J. ADDISON.
Sleep is a death; O make me try
By sleeping what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head
On my grave as now my bed.
_Religio Medici, Pt. II. Sec_. 12. SIR T. BROWNE.
Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.
_Aurengzebe, Act iv. Sc. 1_. J. DRYDEN.
Death, so called, is a thing that makes men weep,
And yet a third of
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