And you know, there's less charm in life when you think about death — but it's more peaceful.

That was when the ones who smiled
Were the dead, glad to be at rest.

It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.

And what is death, if not a face at peace - its artistic perfection.

We are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our grief in silence, and act as if we were not suffering.

Because the reality of death has not yet penetrated awareness, survivors can appear to be quite accepting of the loss.

Death is Peaceful, Life is Harder

They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest ... The dead do not suffer.

But the absence of tears wasn't the same as an absence of feeling.

The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of it.

When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair!

Our mortality does not call for panic, but for a sense of awe.

Only the dead smiled back in those days,
Being at peace and safe from abuse.

I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.