When life grows heavy, hard for hearts to bear,
Death seems like sleep to end the heart’s distress;
The mind asks: suffer, or rise up and dare
To take up arms against life’s deep duress?

Yet dreams may come beyond death’s unknown shore;
No traveler returns to tell what lies;
So wills choose familiar ills once more,
And flee toward other ills beneath strange skies.

The wish for sleep may voice the heart’s release,
Yet thought can pale resolve’s once living hue,
And fear make known ills seem the safer peace,
Till great designs lose action’s name from view.

Read first the cry: “Let all this suffering cease”;
Then ask if death, or rest, is named release.