And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death.

-Whitman,Walt(er)
  Leaves of Grass,'Proto-Leaf', later renamed 'Starting From Paumanok' (from1867).

Come lovelyand soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death.

-Whitman,Walt(er)
^66  Leaves of Grass,'Memories of President Lincoln','When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd', section14.

Though he is approaching death he is possessed by many poems.

-Williams,William Carlos
  Paterson, bk.5.

DerTod ist kein Ereignis des Lebens. DenTod erlebt man nicht. Death isnot an event in life: we do not liveto experience death.

-Wittgenstein, LudwigJosef Johann
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, prop 6.4311 (translated by Pears and McGuinness).

Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by deathö Percivalöothers through sheer inability to cross the street.

-Woolf, (Adeline) Virginia ne¤  e Stephen
TheWaves.

   The thought of death sits easy on the man Who has been born and dies among the mountains.

-Wordsworth,William
c.1800  The Priest.'The Brothers', l.182^3.

And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine; A being breathing thoughtful breath, A traveller between life and death; The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command.

-Wordsworth,William
  'She was a Phantom of delight', l.21^8 (published1807).

Even so for me a vision sanctified The sway of death; long ere my eyes had seen Thy countenanceöthe still rapture of thy mienö When thou, dear Sister! wert become death's bride: No trace of pain or languor could abide That changeöage on thy brow was smoothedöthy cold Wan cheek at once was privileged to unfold A loveliness to living youth denied. Oh! if within me hope should e'er decline, The lamp of faith, lost Friend! too faintly burn; The may that heaven-revealing smile of thine, The bright assurance, visibly return: And let my spirit in that power divine Rejoice, as, through that power, it ceased to mourn.

-Wordsworth,William
  'November1836', complete poem (published1837).

After yourdeathpeoplewill write of yourloveaffairs, but I shall say nothing, because I will remember how proud you were.

-Yeats, Georgie ne¤  e Hyde-Lees
Quoted in Richard Ellman A Long the Riverrun: Selected Essays (1988), p.253.

If I can rejoice for a moment, Death at an early age would still be a long life.

-Yu«  an Mei
c.746  Collected in A Book of ChineseVerse (translated by N L Smith and R H Kotewall).