When I die, I hope it is like my dreams. In that way, death would not be so fearful, A remedy for my thoughts when I sleep. In return, I dream of my death by this Stuff that so haunts my dreams. To be scorns of Time and its aching length, calamity Of so long life. Yet we so dread something After death, a no-mans land from where no One shall return – this makes us bear our ills. We fight. We suffer. We are wounded, all. So we are cowards that do fear our deaths, For we fear the unknown, those we know not. Instead we dream that dying is dreaming, To sooth our conscience and minds from unreeling.
After a close reading of Hamlet's 'To be, or not to be', I chose elements of it to base this sonnet on as a response and a helpful tool to understand part of its meaning a little better.