William Wordsworth

Argument For Suicide

Send this man to the mine, this to the battle, Famish an aged beggar at your gates, And let him die by inches- but for worlds Lift not your hand against him- Live, live on, As if this earth owned neither steel nor arsenic, A rope, a river, or a standing pool. Live, if you dread the pains of hell, or think Your corpse would quarrel with a stake- alas Has misery then no friend? - if you would die By license, call the dropsy and the stone And let them end you- strange it is; And most fantastic are the magic circles Drawn round the thing called life- till we have learned To prize it less, we ne'er shall learn to prize The things worth living for. -