There’s much to be said for death.
According to sages, who speak for the ages,
It’s mistaken to fear your last breath.
“Death is a blessing,” said Socrates, despite his friends’ tension.
“The Gods we should thank,” he remarked as he drank
The hemlock without apprehension.
“Death is nothing to fear, you see,”
claimed Epicurus, reasoning thus:
“When I am, death is not; when death is, I am not. Q.E.D.”
“Death is a sister,” said St. Francis so gently,
“Kindly embrace her and greet her with grace, Sir,”
As he communed with the birds quite intently.
‘Tis as natural to die as be born”
Said Francis Bacon, completely unshaken
And swore death was nothing to mourn.
“Death gives life its meaning”,
Heidegger remarked and gravely embarked
On a metaphysics quite overweening.
So say the sages and others far wiser than I.
Their words I allow; their assertions I avow.
Yet somehow . . . I’d prefer not to die.