“It’s been too hard living, but I’m afraid to die
‘Cause I don’t know what’s up there, beyond the sky
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come” – Sam Cooke

Euthanasia (from Greek: εὐθανασία; “good death”: εὖ, eu; “well” or “good” – θάνατος, thanatos; “death”) is the practice of intentionally ending a life to relieve pain and suffering. – Wikipedia 18 January 2018

As the philosopher says:

“It all depends on what you mean by ‘good’.”

For one man here he sees a euphemism

Another says unhappily she would

Go down to Hades into darkest shades

“By hand” if but she could

Ah, there’s the rub!

We don’t know whereabouts our jorney’s end

So should we need a shove?

And is this kicking into touch as rigorous as was promised

A kindly stroke of managed deadly love?

One guy today – now, no, I am divided,

I feel for both sides, but I follow Christ –

One guy today, his melancholy family,

In his behalf, he having months to live,

And too, too scarcely compos mentis to forgive

Them should he meantime change his view

On taking and rejoicing in a final palliative,

His case now in expedition to the courts

To bring to bear the Lords Court of Appeal

Not God Almighty’s, no, not the real deal

A court of fickle men instead, maybe a woman?

Elected by their great discretion valour intellect

Learned in law; of sentience, sensitivity

Are called this time to trespass on God’s own prospect

And give a ruling

This sadly near-to-death unlucky man is trying

So say his family, to bring in comfy death

First for himself, and then for others like him

Who feel severely they have had enough

Of fear, of bearing pain, in lingering

For who knows what disasters, saps the strength

Required so as to say, “Ah, death, you’re mastered”

And then contented go the mortal way

Instead curtailment of a life beforehand

To a ‘natural’ death; ‘by hand’ to legalise

The open prize to hold had from the Law Lords

Should such Law Lords agree, are satisfied

This course is safe, and just, and in their eyes

Not detrimental to the commonality.

Yet though, this sickly man, appelant, now shall see

His case brought forwards by his family

In time and to the height of jurisdiction

And wrought by media channels grievously

He stands unable in his mind to learn

Which way his fate has fallen, and his urn

Whichever way it turns this consonance maintains –

Alas, wherefore they trouble his remains?

Those earnest eager folks who would have victory

And so release from fear, from painfiul death, all others

By way of courting death for all our brothers

And sisters, who are laid in pain, in fear declining

Perhaps these eager beavers make their stands on principle

Or maybe bear a serious compassion:

So they cultivate this idol that they’d fashion

In heart and mind; or consider their own ends

And shudder, for the ghost of death so lends

A cast of pallour over futures contemplated

Although our ‘natural’ endings we shall never know

Unless curated,

Unless we go to death aware and lowly

Mustering prayer perhaps to something holy

With ruth and not presumtion of from where we came

Are going to, nor where we shall hereafter rest, remain,

And what might this control by designating death

Its time, its type, accord to one’s planned wish,

Provide as comfort to us, other than to hide a haste,

Behind a veil of reasoned ignorance

Assuming to presume to knowledge greater

More sure and grounded than the ages sagely tell;

A veil assured by clouded frowned insouciance

Which states and unequivocally holds

The untruth of life’s verities of old

Which statement, which confession hurts me hearing

So often from a people telling, telling me

Who tell it again and over, as it were a tale by rote

Their message is: Get Real!; and tell it like it is!:

A sharp amount of harshness in their fiery steel

A brash abrasive scorning of a sweet compassion

Perhaps excusing in this way a having of compassion

Extending past one’s ‘you and yours’ or out of doors

Or perhaps preferred secured within the nation?

A last ditch wherein to absolve oneself

From taking kindly action

Since ultimately overall there’s nothing matters

World’s problems are too big too many; let us better

For sanity and safety’s sake turn off, be local,

And root to break prospective final pain and loss

Be vocal and protest, make ripples, someone must pay;

On all the saints above make hearty holiday!

For did we something better from a fancied God

Not then deserve, than death’s appalling fate

Who grow to eld and so go take the one-way Exit Gate?

Is it to stand opposed to outgrown courses

On which our understandings all are under-shored

In whom we live and move and have our very being?

Instead by ultimate assertion of one’s primal choice

One’s individuality, ‘brings on the wild horses!’

That dignity of man, our highest integrity,

That self; expressed, asserted, honoured most supreme!

Sad fact; all those things which were once none but a hapless dream

Whose truth has realised upon a cross incarnadine

For all men and all women whom unless would be

Slaves hauling stone in droves for proud Assyrian grandees

Or bought in Egypt, fallen on our faces

Brute masters make amusement at these cattle cowering.

This is the legacy to which our ways are dowering

By battering the issue like a battering ram

Upon the doors of democratic sympathies

And men and women, you are by your lights destroying

What you do greatly pride-in; by your faithless toying

You know not what you do and are too testy sanguine;

The issues of hoar death are not of men nor women neither

These last things they belong to some one wondrous mystery

Myself I say the Lord and God of all our history

Ours is to kneel before it, so allow its higher valour

To accept our time to die, accept our life not ours