When one by one our ties are torn,
And friend from friend is snatched forlorn;
When man is left alone to mourn,
Oh! then how sweet it is to die!
Source: A Thought on Death.
-- Anna Letitia Barbauld, (Jun 20 1743-1825), English poet, writer; She was one of the foremost radical intellectual women of her time; edited the fifty volumes of The British Novelists, 1810.