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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Sonnet: ‘What has this bugbear death that ’s worth our care?’

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. III. The Eighteenth Century: Addison to Blake

William Walsh (1663–1708)

Sonnet: ‘What has this bugbear death that ’s worth our care?’

WHAT has this bugbear death that ’s worth our care?

After a life of pain and sorrow past,

After deluding hopes and dire despair,

Death only gives us quiet at the last;

How strangely are our love and hate misplaced!

Freedom we seek, and yet from freedom flee,

Courting those tyrant-sins that chain us fast,

And shunning death that only sets us free.

’Tis not a foolish fear of future pains,—

Why should they fear who keep their souls from stains?—

That makes me dread thy terrors, Death, to see;

’Tis not the loss of riches or of fame,

Or the vain toys the vulgar pleasures name,

’Tis nothing, Celia, but the losing thee!