Duty by Ellen S. Hooper

I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty:
I woke and found that life was Duty:
Was then the dream a shadowy lie?
Toil on, sad heart, courageously,
And thou shalt find they dream to be
A noonday light and truth to thee.

Survivor by Roger McGough

Everyday,
I think about dying.
About disease, starvation,
violence, terrorism, war,
the end of the world.
 
It helps
keep my mind off things.