The Death of Death

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

Sonnet CXLVI.

POOR soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

Fooled by those rebel powers that thee array,

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?

Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?

Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,

And let that pine to aggravate thy store;

Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more.

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

And, Death once dead, there ’s no more dying then.