Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream
John Keats, On Death
1.
Does one need to sleep in order to dream,
Can phantoms be, for this lucid wake, the lust for a warm death?
Open eyes do not lend to idle minds,
As sounds and signs entrench in our thoughts
Blanketing imagination with hints of what may be, reality;
These the true pains pricking like pins on man’s nape,
So poignant and persistent.
2.
What’s strange is man,
How man desires to writhe upon the earth’s face and claim life,
Neither rugged paths nor sights drawn by swollen eyes
Shall paint doom in the heart of a man who aspires to forever wake!
For if sleeping is death, when life is but a dream,
Why allow bliss to drift from his gaze?
Clamor 