Go thou, deceased, to this earth which is a mother, and spacious
and kind. May her touch be soft read more

Go thou, deceased, to this earth which is a mother, and spacious
and kind. May her touch be soft like that of wool, or a young
woman, and may she protect thee from the depths of destruction.
Rise above him, O Earth, do not press painfully on him, give him
good things, give him consolation, as a mother covers her child
with her cloth, cover thou him.

A man does not die of love or his liver or even of old age; he dies of being a read more

A man does not die of love or his liver or even of old age; he dies of being a man.

Death--the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening.

Death--the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening.

Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.

Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.

We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as read more

We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance.

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable read more

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.

Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.

Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.

Her cabin'd ample spirit,
It fluttered and fail'd for breath;
Tonight it doth inherit
read more

Her cabin'd ample spirit,
It fluttered and fail'd for breath;
Tonight it doth inherit
The vasty hall of death.

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious read more

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.