OF LIFE AND DEATH

THE ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds:

Through which our merit leads us to our meeds.

How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray,

And hath it in his powers to make his way!

This world death’s region is, the other life’s:

And here it should be one of our first strifes,

So to front death, as men might judge us past it:

For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.