THE OLD WOMAN.
Melior est mors quàm vita.
Eccle. xxx.
En peine ay uescu longuement
Tant que nay plus de uiure enuie,
Mais bien ie croy certainement,
Meilleure la Mort que la uie.
"Melior est mors quam vita" to the aged woman who crawls gravewards with her bone rosary while Death makes music in the van.
It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and universal as death should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind. -- Jonathan Swift