Sickness, the serpent, is coming to bite you, Death, the old dark man, is coming to carry you off, Rest uneasy, you stinking carrion, on your gold be… - Tanith Lee

Finding in himself a profound strain of yearning, Pereban had mistaken it for religion. He entered the temple and dedicated himself to the worship of the goddess. Thereafter her statue—a roughhewn lump of rock with painted blobs for eyes and black wool for hair—so disappointed him that he kneeled to it, and beat himself regularly, every morning.

There is, too, a sort of relief in admitting defeat. Struggling to drag a mountain from my path, acknowledging at last the mountain would remain, lying down beneath the mountain, thankful for the shade of it.

And in the manner of this ideal we strive, though even that not too onerously. For piety itself may be used to make a chain about the soul.