Explore "A Survey of Death" by Thomas James Wise on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
My blood is freezing, my senses reel, / So horror stricken at heart I feel; / Thinking how like a fast stream we range / Nearer and nearer to that dread change, / When the body becomes so stark and cold, / And man doth crumble away to mould.
Boast not, proud maid, for the grave doth gape, / And strangely altered reflects thy shape; / No dainty charms it doth disclose, / Death will ravish thy beauty's rose; / And all the rest will leave to thee / When dug thy chilly grave shall be.
O, ye who are tripping the floor so light, / In delicate robes as the lily white, / Think of the fading funeral wreath, / The dying struggle, the sweat of death- / Think on the dismal death array, / When the pallid corse is consigned to clay!
O, ye who in quest of riches roam, / Reflect that ashes ye must become; / And the wealth ye win will brightly shine / When buried are ye and all your line; / For your many chests of much loved gold / You'll nothing obtain but a little mould!