Since we can die but once, what matters it
If rope or garter, poison, pistol, sword
Slow wasting sickness or the sudden burst of valve arterial in the noblest parts
Curtail the misery of human life?
Tho' varied is the cause, the effect's the same
All to one common dissolution tends.
I am not enamored of the fact we die than Tom C. was (and he thought of all the ways we die at our own hands) and unlike the poet I don't believe human life is one of misery. To the contrary, life is its own reward even in the face of death. Its mysterious, beautiful, and sublime both in its duration and essential majesty. Even the frailest of people have a presence of mind and a nobility of character that's apparent in their determination to live despite all the odds. A friend of mine who passed away earlier this year impressed me with her the love she had in abundance and her outlook on life despite the condition that kept her most of the time from living life the way most of us take for granted. What matters in our human condition is not so much what we come down with than our desire to be in control of our own fate. Carpe Diem! That matters a lot more in the end than all of Chatterton's pessimism about the eventual common dissolution which has been the bane of our existence since man first came on this Earth.