No course or discussion on death amongst a bunch of preppies can go far without playing these poems as background music.  If we don't pull them up to consciousness your subconcious will play them and distract you.  So lets get them out of the way...

                                                                                                         Bob Hill

 

Invictus" is a short Victorian poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley (1849–1903).

 

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

 

Then there's Seeger's Poem.  (I Have a Rendezvous With Death)

 

Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry.  1919.

Alan Seeger. 1888–1916

121. "I Have a Rendezvous with Death"

 

I HAVE a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death	5
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.	10
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows 'twere better to be deep	15
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death	20
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

 

Dedicate this to Dr. French at my old prep school.

 

Now, lets get back to our rendezvous with sacrifices, human sacrifices, and the many ways they are seen now and throughout history.  Lets try to see them as clearly as possible both through our eyes and the feelings and eyes of others.  Let's try for complete clarity, transparency.  If necessary, let's meet it head on.