s ademit.

His whole mind was steeped in the thought of death; and though he
can hardly be said to have written 'the words that shall make death
exhilarating,' he devoted his genius, in all its energy, to removing
from before men the terror of the doom that waits for all.
Sometimes, in his attempt at consolation, he adduces images which,
like the Delphian knife, are double-handled, and cut both ways:--

hinc indignatur se mortalem esse creatum
nec videt in vera nullum fore morte alium se
qui possit vivus sibi se lugere peremptum
stansque iacentem se lacerari urive dolere.

This suggests, by way of contrast, Blake's picture of the soul that
has just left the body and laments her separation. As we read, we
are inclined to lay the book down, and wonder whether the argument
is, after all, conclusive. May not the spirit, when she has quitted
her old house, be forced to weep and wring her hands, and stretch
vain shadowy arms to the limbs that were so dear? No one has felt
more profoundly than Lucretius the pathos of the dead. The intensity
with which he realised what we must lose in dying and what we leave
behind of grief to those who loved us, reaches a climax of
restrained passion in this well-known paragraph:--

'iam iam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor
optima nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
praeripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent.
non poteris factis florentibus esse, tuisque
praesidium. misero misere' aiunt 'omnia ademit
una dies infesta tibi tot praemia vitae.'
illud in his rebus non addunt 'nec tibi earum
iam desiderium rerum super insidet una.'
quod bene si videant animo dictisque sequantur,
dissoluant animi magno se angore metuque.
'tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris aevi
quod superest cunctis privatu' doloribus aegris.
at nos horrifico cinefactum te prope busto
insatiabiliter deflevimus, aeternumque
nulla dies nobis maerorem e pectore demet.'

Images, again, of almost mediaeval grotesqueness, rise in his mind
when he contemplates the universality of Death. Simonides had dared
to say: 'One horrible Charybdis waits for all.' That was as near a
discord as a Greek could venture on. Lucretius describes the open
gate and 'huge wide-gaping maw' which must devour heaven, earth, and
sea, and all that they contain:--

haut igitur leti praeclusa est ianua caelo
nec soli terraeque neque altis aequoris undis,
sed patet immani et vasto respectat hiatu.

T