| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910. | | | | Sonnet: ‘What has this bugbear Death that’s worth our care?’ | | By William Walsh (1663–1708) |
| | | WHAT has this bugbear Death that’s worth our care? | |
| After a life in pain and sorrow past, | |
| After deluding hope and dire despair, | |
| Death only gives us quiet at the last. | |
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| How strangely are our love and hate misplaced! | 5 |
| Freedom we seek, and yet from freedom flee; | |
| Courting those tyrant-sins that chain us fast, | |
| And shunning Death, that only sets us free. | |
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| ’Tis not a foolish fear of future pains, | |
| (Why should they fear who keep their souls from stains?) | 10 |
| That makes me dread thy terrors, Death, to see: | |
| ’Tis not the loss of riches, or of fame, | |
| Or the vain toys the vulgar pleasures name; | |
| ’Tis nothing, Caelia, but losing thee. | | | | |
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