William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

AY, but to die, and go we know not where,

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot:

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling regions of thick-ribbèd ice;

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts

Imagine howling!—’tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life,

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death.