Poets and philosophers are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Death is here and death is there,
Death is busy everywhere,
All around, within, beneath,
Above is death - and we are death.

Death has set his mark and seal
On all we are and all we feel,
On all we know and all we fear,

First our pleasures die - and then
Our hopes, and then our fears - and when
These are dead, the debt is due,
Dust claims dust - and we die too.

All things that we love and cherish,
Like ourselves must fade and perish;
Such is our rude mortal lot -
Love itself would, did they not.

One word is too often profaned For me to profane it; One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it.

The intense atom glows A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.