Death Had His Grudge Against Me, And

All Pleasure In The World Is A Passing Dream.

And I Live On, But In Grief And Self-contempt, Left Here Without The Light I Loved So Much, In A Great Tempest And With Shrouds Unkempt.

And Men Go About To Wonder At The Heights Of The Mountains, And The Mighty Waves Of The Sea, And The Wide Sweep Of Rivers, And The Circuit Of The Ocean, And The Revolution Of The Stars, But Themselves They Consider Not.

I Had Got This Far, And Was Thinking Of What To Say Next, And As My Habit Is, I Was Pricking The Paper Idly With My Pen. And I Thought How, Between One Dip Of The Pen And The Next, Time Goes On, And I Hurry, Drive Myself, And Speed Toward Death. We Are Always Dying. I While I Write, You While You Read, And Others While They Listen Or Stop Their Ears, They Are All Dying.

If A Hundred Or A Thousand People, All Of The Same Age, Of The Same Constitution And Habits, Were Suddenly Seized By The Same Illness, And One Half Of Them Were To Place Themselves Under The Care Of Doctors, Such As They Are In Our Time, Whilst The Other Half Entrusted Themselves To Nature And To Their Own Discretion, I Have Not The Slightest Doubt That There Would Be More Cases Of Death Amongst The Former, And More Cases Of Recovery Among The Latter.