Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 5, section 3 (p. 430)
“I may,
if I can,
sleep; since I must,
die.
Some say,
rise.”
"The Monosyllable" lines 15–20, The Chinese Insomniacs: New Poems, 1981, University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 0812278186
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if I can,
sleep; since I must,
die.
Some say,
rise." by Josephine Jacobsen?
Josephine Jacobsen 2
American-Canadian poet 1908–2003Related quotes
"Shady, shady the wood in front of the Hall"
Translated by Arthur Waley
“I want to say I may have seen my son die this morning.”
Michael Joyce
(1945) American academic and writer
"afternoon, a story" (1990)
“I think the slain care little if they sleep or rise again.”
trans. https://archive.org/stream/agamemnonofaesch015545mbp/agamemnonofaesch015545mbp#page/n38/mode/1up Gilbert Murray
Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon
“Grant me grace, O God! that I
My life may mend, sith I must die.”
Robert Southwell
(1561–1595) English Jesuit
Source: Upon the Image of Death, Line 53; p. 138.
Nikita Khrushchev
(1894–1971) First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Khrushchev's reply when the Swedish prime minister Erlander assured him that Sweden had no intention of repeating the 1709 Battle of Poltava in eastern Ukraine between Russia and Sweden. From a Swedish-Soviet summit which began on March 30, 1956, in Moscow, as quoted in Raoul Wallenberg (1985) by Eric Sjöquist, p. 125 ISBN 9153650875
Charles Bukowski
(1920–1994) American writer
Source: Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories (1996), Lines from "So now?" - p.402 (circa 1994. He died in March 1994, aged 73.)
“It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth: Louis must die, so that the country may live.”
Maximilien Robespierre
(1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician
Original French: Je prononce à regret cette fatale vérité... mais Louis doit mourir, parce qu'il faut que la patrie vive.
Speech to the National Convention http://www.royet.org/nea1789-1794/archives/journal_debats/an/1792/convention_1792_12_03.htm on the judgment of Louis XVI (3 December 1792)