Truth deals largely with us.
—James Joyce (1882–1941), "The Day of the Rabblement" (1901)
He is now in the way of Truth.
Tha e nis air slighe na fùinne.
(Gaelic proverb. He is dying.)
He is now on the sod of truth.
Tha e nis air fòid na fìrinne.
(He is dead.)
Photo by Mark Hillary.
Dear God,
don't punish me for saying
my life was so lovely!
We're human,
our verbs have tenses,
they're not like Yours,
eternal.
—Adélia Prado (1935—, Brazilian poet), "Woman at Nightfall" (2013), translated by Ellen Doré Watson
Ó Deus,
não me castigue se falo
minha vida foi tão bonita!
Somos humanos,
nossos verbos têm tempos,
não são como o Vosso,
eterno.
"Mulher ao cair da tarde"
Photo by Barbara Jackson on Pixabay
"To live" means to pick up particles of death
as a child picks up crumbs from beneath the table.
"To exist" means to drop the bread behind you on the path
hoping the birds will find the crumbs and eat them.
"To live" is to rush forward eating up your own death,
like a locomotive with its catcher on, hurrying into the night.
—Robert Bly (1926–), "To live or not"
Photo of wild turkey and her chicks at Cumberland Island National Seashore from PxHere
I remember reading somewhere that the living are just a rare species of the dead. I don't believe this. The living, I think, are larvae of the dead—dead bodies at an early stage of development.
–Sir Hugo Coal in The Grotesque, by Patrick McGrath
Photo by Zdeněk Kratochvíl on Wikimedia Commons
…I was young and the dead were in other Ages
As the grass has its own language
Now I forget where the difference falls
One thing about the living sometimes a piece of us
Can stop dying for a moment
But you the dead.
Once you go into those names you go on you never
Hesitate
You go on
—W.S. Merwin (1927–2019), "The Hydra." Originally published in Poetry magazine, May 1967
Photo by Chris Beckett on Flickr
In the midst of life we are in death
of whom may we seek for succour,
but of thee, O Lord,
who for our sins
art justly displeased?
Yet, O Lord God most holy,
O Lord most mighty,
O holy and most merciful Saviour,
deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.
—An anonymous Latin poem from Gregorian chant, later in The Book of Common Prayer. The English version seems to be by Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556)
Everything is devoured by voracious Time, everything destroyed,
it changes everything settled, lets nothing be for long.
Rivers fail, the land dries up the fleeing sea,
mountains dwindle and high peaks fall.
How can we talk of such small things? The whole vast structure of sky
will suddenly burn up in its own flames.
Death demands everything. It is the law, not a penalty, to perish.
There will come a time when the world is no more.
—Seneca the Younger (ca 4–65), Roman philosopher, politician and writer
Omnia tempus edax depascitur, omnia carpit,
omnia sede movet, nil sinit esse diu.
Flumina deficiunt, profugum mare litora siccant,
subsidunt montes et juga celsa ruunt.
Quid tam parva loquor? moles pulcherrima caeli
ardebit flammis tota repente suis.
Omnia mors poscit. Lex est, non poena, perire:
hic aliquo mundus tempore nullus erit.
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
—The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
—Philip Larkin (1922–1985), "Aubade" from Collected Poems (Faber and Faber, 1988/2003, ed. Anthony Thwaite). Copyright © Estate of Philip Larkin. Reprinted by kind permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.
