Thread: Well, he died doing what he liked to do.

I think you have to look at it like this:

By a Bier-Side

Man is a sacred city, built of marvellous earth.
Life was lived nobly here to give this body birth.
Something was in this brain, and in his eager hand.
Death is so dumb and blind, Death cannot understand.
Death drifts the bran with dust and soils the young limbs' glory.
Death makes women and dream and men a traveller's story,
Death drives the lovely soul to wander under the sky,
Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die.

John Mansfield

COOL TOMBS

When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs.

And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs.

Pocahontas' body, lovely as poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she remember? . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs?

Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries, cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns . . . tell me if the lovers are losers . . . tell me if any get more than the lovers . . .
in the dust . . . in the cool tombs.

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

I was a sniper.... I did not want to die doing it.... I want to die in bed in my my sleep... That mentality is for people who have the luxury of making romantic decisions about their fate.. There is nothing to be glorified in death that is outside of the death one has during sleep.. It is a battle of the physical body and the mind that is horrible to witness... I have seldomly seen people give this earthreal plane up willingly...

Wow, some of the most thoughtful, personal, and even disturbing responses I have ever read on SRP are in this thread, even great poetry (BTW, I always tell my students that Death is by far the most personified concept in literature). You iron-workers and combat vets no doubt have experienced it more up close and personal than myself. And GI, I'd forgotten about Thoreau's brother. Didn't he hold the brother in his arms in the last throes of tetanus, as I recall?

As the first poster to use the "good death" quote, allow me to clarify: I don't think anybody ever, in the act of dying, and given time to be cognizant of said impending death before the plane cork-screwed in, said to themselves, "This is a good death." And though I have only seen (natural) death a couple of times, I have heard of examples of pious Christians (including my own grandmother), who truly believed they were heaven-bound, scream and cry for their vanishing life in their last hours. Yes, it is all too easy to philosophize about a "good death" in a movie, or even one's own in an abstract way. After all, obsessing about Death is our favorite obsession.

I know, for me and many others I've talked to, I can think of all too many "bad" deaths: drowning, burning up in a fire, caught in machinery, etc. Probably the lucky ones are the ones who, as one poster said, go quietly in their sleep, or else instantaneously (instant massive trauma in a collision out of nowhere, or similar). Lots of food for thought all around.

One more, this from Dylan Thomas ;

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Reminds me of this:

I want to die peacefully, in my sleep - like my grandpa;
Not screaming in terror, like the people in his car.

"It ain't the dying, it's laying in the damn grave so long..."

Well,,,for me I have "over-dosed" on this death thread.
I'm leaving & going to somewhere more exciting, like the "ugh,,,,,tape threads".

Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

I think you have to look at it like this:

By a Bier-Side

Man is a sacred city, built of marvellous earth.
Life was lived nobly here to give this body birth.
Something was in this brain, and in his eager hand.
Death is so dumb and blind, Death cannot understand.
Death drifts the bran with dust and soils the young limbs' glory.
Death makes women and dream and men a traveller's story,
Death drives the lovely soul to wander under the sky,
Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die.

John Mansfield

If an author/poet/movie director doesn't get their point across the first time through i think that they failed at their job. After about 10 readings I think that i get the point. Can.you explain this to me?

Tim

Originally Posted by 32t

If an author/poet/movie director doesn't get their point across the first time through i think that they failed at their job. After about 10 readings I think that i get the point. Can.you explain this to me?

Tim

Yeah. Sorry. Fair point. I knew it was off topic a tad. I think it's saying it's OK to die. I like how it starts off praising man, youth really, life, goes on to have a go at Death, calling it stupid, etc, talks of the soul leaving the body (which sounds nice, really), then actually ends up praising death at the fact that at least it's something new. Now, one may feel death is the end, and another may not. I guess this pretty old poem might hold to the 'not' idea rather than the 'is' idea.

Poetry, like all art, speaks privately and individually; one enters into a personal relationship with it. What this poem says to me may not be what it says to you.

I understand the original post about risk taking, living life to the full, etc. I heard a snippet the other day on the radio about an 'aging seminar'. It was about how long, theoretically a person could live for. It talked about a French lady; 120 odd years I think. But she was hardly a model for good living. She DID finally give up smoking; at 119. It talked of those who restrict calories; as it's I think been found to be a factor. She (the presenter) said she always remembered those people who restricted calories, as they always seemed so sad. She said, yes, it may bring a long life, but it FEELS long.