1 How frailty makes us to our wrong Fear, and be loth to die, When Life is only dying long And Death the remedy! We shun Eternity, And still would grovel here beneath, Though still in woe and strife, When Life's the path that leads to Death, And Death the door to Life. 2 The fear of Death is the disease Makes the poor patient smart; Vain apprehensions often freeze The vitals in the heart, Without the dreaded dart. When fury rides on pointed steel Death's fear the heart doth seize, Whilst in that very fear we feel A greater sting than his. 3 But chaste Camilla's virtuous fear Was of a nobler kind, Not of her end approaching near But to be left behind From her dear Love disjoin'd; When Death in courtesy decreed To make the Fair his prize, And by one cruelty her freed From human cruelties. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO A FRIEND by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS TO ROSAMONDE: A BALADE by GEOFFREY CHAUCER THE HILL WIFE: HOUSE FEAR by ROBERT FROST SYMPHONY OF THE SOIL by EVA K. ANGLESBURG AUTUMN by GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE SONNET ON PIETRO REGGIO HIS SETTING TO MUSIC MR. COWLEY'S POEMS by PHILIP AYRES |