What Is Death?

Pain comes, and pain goes.
We witness death throes,
We hear the sorrowful cry:
Why must life end?
Why must good men die?
Why does the end
Come early for a few?
Why did my darling friend,
Only yet a child,
Come face to face
With cold, cruel death?
I saw his pale lips quiver
And his frail limbs shake and shiver
As he took his final breath.
And the dark angel descended,
And kissed his icy brow.
His life too soon had ended,
In death his life suspended,
And I wept. Oh, how
I wept such hot and bitter tears.
What, pray tell, is death,
That takes loved ones away?
What, pray tell, is death?
The living cannot say.