“Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by,” read the words on the tombstone of Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Most of us would cast a cold eye on death, but on life? Does a passionate love of life make it harder to let go at life’s end, or does it make it easier, knowing that you have fully embraced what was given to you, for however long it was given?
How do you live so that you can meet your eventual end with grace?
In this Irish monument, Gandhi crouches by the words of William Butler Yeats:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
What precious dreams do you offer up to the world?
