Holy Sonnet X
You only get to die once. Practice scorning death now so that you regard it with the proper contempt when the time comes.
March 18, 2020
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You only get to die once. Practice scorning death now so that you regard it with the proper contempt when the time comes.
Pastor Nicolai wrote this hymn in the midst of a devastating plague and while burying dozens of people a week.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue, our love shall live, and later life renew.
The sonnet form gives the poet precisely 140 syllables in which to make a point. One might think this would be limiting. Quite the opposite.
Whenever the devil pesters you with these thoughts, at once seek out the company of men, drink more, joke and jest…