Suicide

Thomas Chatterton

1752 to 1770

Poem Image

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 noble parts,
Curtail the miseries of human life?
Though varied is the cause, the effect’s the same: 
All to one common dissolution tends.