Men must endure
  Their going hence, even as their coming hither: 
  Ripeness is all.
King Lear, Act v.  Sc. 2.  SHAKESPEARE.

This fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest.
Hamlet, Act v.  Sc. 2.  SHAKESPEARE.

We cannot hold mortality’s strong hand. King John, Act iv.  Sc. 2.  SHAKESPEARE.

  That we shall die we know:  ’t is but the time
  And drawing days out, that men stand upon.
Julius Caesar, Act iii.  Sc. 1.  SHAKESPEARE.

  Our days begin with trouble here,
    Our life is but a span,
  And cruel death is always near,
    So frail a thing is man.
New England Primer.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Julius Caesar, Act ii.  Sc. 2.  SHAKESPEARE.

The hour concealed, and so remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
Essay on Man, Epistle III.  A. POPE.

                   The tongues of dying men
  Enforce attention, like deep harmony: 
  When words are scarce, they’re seldom spent in vain;
  For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
K.  Richard II., Act ii.  Sc. 1.  SHAKESPEARE.

A death-bed’s a detector of the heart: 
Here tired dissimulation drops her mask,
Through life’s grimace that mistress of the scene;
Here real and apparent are the same.
Night Thoughts, Night II.  DR. E. YOUNG.

The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
Night Thoughts.  Night II.  DR. E. YOUNG.

                      Nothing in his life
  Became him like the leaving it; he died,
  As one that had been studied in his death,
  To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
  As ’t were a careless trifle.
Macbeth, Act i.  Sc. 4.  SHAKESPEARE.

The bad man’s death is horror; but the just,
Keeps something of his glory in the dust.
Castara.  W. HABINGTON.

  Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
  Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled;
  No reckoning made, but sent to my account
  With all my imperfections on my head.
Hamlet, Act i.  Sc. 1.  SHAKESPEARE.

  With mortal crisis doth portend
  My days to appropinque an end.
Hudibras, Pt.  I. Canto III.  S. BUTLER.

  Sure, ’t is a serious thing to die!... 
  Nature runs back and shudders at the sight,
  And every life-string bleeds at thought of parting;
  For part they must:  body and soul must part;
  Fond couple! linked more close than wedded pair.
The Grave.  B. BLAIR.

  While man is growing, life is in decrease;
  And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb. 
  Our birth is nothing but our death begun.
Night Thoughts, Night V.  DR. E. YOUNG.