The serious nineteenth-century man of letters William Cullen Bryant was the author of “Thanatopsis,” a serious poem whose title translates from Greek as “contemplation of death.” It concludes with a serious moral, namely:
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
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“So live, that” translates mostly to “So live in such a way that.”
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And yes, there is such a word as “napery.” Seriously, look it up.
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