Algernon Charles Swinburne on Death

“On the mountains of memory, by the world's wellsprings, In all men's eyes, Where the light of the life of him is on all past things, Death only dies.”

“Death, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee: Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built, One shelter where our spirits fain would be Death, if thou wilt?”

“For thee, O now a silent soul, my brother, Take at my hands this garland and farewell. Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell, And chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother.”

“And hands that wist not though they dug a grave, Undid the hasps of gold, and drank, and gave, And he drank after, a deep glad kingly draught: And all their life changed in them, for they quaffed Death; if it be death so to drink, and fare As men who change and are what these twain were.”