Classic Poem

Why be afraid of death
As though your life were breath?
Death but anoints your eyes
With clay, O glad surprise!
Why should you be forlorn?
Death only husks the corn.
Why should you fear to meet
The Thresher of the wheat?
Is sleep a thing to dread?
Yet, sleeping you are dead
Till you awake and rise,
Here, or beyond the skies.
Why should it be a wrench
To leave your wooden bench?
Why not, with happy shout,
Run home when school is out?
The dear ones left behind?
O foolish one and blind,
A day, and you will meet;
A night, and you will greet.
This is the death of death:
To breathe away a breath,
And know the end of strife,
And taste the deathless life,
And joy without a fear,
And smile without a tear,
And work, not care nor rest,
And find the last the best.