Death by any other name?

Sweet shades why doe you seeke to give delight

    To mee who deeme delight in this vilde place

    Butt torment, sorrow, and mine owne disgrace

    To taste of joy, or your vaine pleasing sight;

Show them your pleasures who saw never night

    Of greife, wher joyings fauning, smiling face

    Appeers as day, wher griefe found never space

    Yett for a sigh, a grone, or envies spite;

Butt O on mee a world of woes doe ly,

    Or els on mee all harmes strive to rely,

    And to attend like servants bound to mee,

Heat in desire, while frosts of care I prove,

    Wanting my love, yett surfett doe with love

    Burne, and yett freeze, better in hell to bee.

Pamphilia to Amphilanthus: 17 by Lady Mary Wroth

Death is a mystery. Is that why suicide seems to crop up in poems so often? Is the allure of the unknown that draws humanity to murder mysteries? To the ponderings of suicide? Fear of the unknown seems to present itself in many ways. Humanity as a general rule, will hate those that are different, whether because of their beliefs or how they appear. Fear of death as an unknown? That presents in religions, in people trying to find a reason why they live and how they will live on after death. Lady Mary Wroth seems to be greeting death in the poem while at the same time fretting about going into death’s warm embrace. I enjoy reading poems like this. It might be a bit morbid but knowing that other people in the past have contemplated death in similar ways can be nice. It helps one feel, not alone.