There are no fears of undiscovered countries
Or bournes from which no
traveller returns
To one who knows this lie is all there is;
So when he
feels it has become oppressive,
The effort of drawing breath exhausts and
strains him
And dispriz'd love, and whips and scorns etcetera
Have
mangled him, why does he not switch off?
Perhaps the thought that, having once been happy
(and stirred by the analogy
of life
Being a wheel) he will be again be so;
Or some imagined, as yet
unseen sight,
Like Halley's Comet lighting up the sky
For which he'd
have to wait till '86;
Or else objective curiosity:
Who will be
President in ten years' time?
Who'll win the hockey in the Olympic
Games?
And then his family: although he knows
When dead there's no
remorse, he cannot bear
` That they, remaining, feel he did not love them
-
It is such things that hold him to the earth
And not the dread of
something after death.