First love is first death. There is no other.
There is no death. But all men live forever
And die forever. If this were not true,
We would be more deceived, still more deceived
Than this belief deceives us, whether or not
We think that we believe or we think
Those who believe are deceived. But to believe
That death is the sweet asylum of nothingness:
Is the cruel sick dream of the the criminal and the suicide:
Of those who deny reality, of those who steal from consciousness,
Of those who are often fugitive, of those who are afraid to live,
Of those who are terrified by love, and
Those who try -- before they
Try to die-- to disappear
And hide.
-- Delmore Schwartz. "The Sequel"