Life is a sarcasm rare,

It stands in a class of its own,

While love thrills the heart of the fair

Decay is at work on the bone.

That instant the clasp is undone

The mantle of life slips away,

And beauty men worshipped of yore

Becomes but inanimate clay.

There’s reason in all things save death,

And no one knows why that should be;

What is there mysterious in breath,

That it should so suddenly flee?

Nay, ask not the bent, aged form,

The cripple, the starving, the weak,

But he whose life-blood courses warm,

With health in his eye, on his cheek.

Go ask him what thinks he of death,

He will laugh in his heart for reply,

With sarcasm bating his breath,

He will tell you he’s ready to die.