The speech of the dying is sublime. I read Les Miserables and chanced upon the dying speech of the old revolutionary, I found the spirit of the speech, if not the substance, remarkably parallel to that of Wilfred Owen's Strange Meeting.

One speaks of triumphs and noble pursuits, the other of regrets and resignation. Yet they are one and the same, with the profound similitude of people at the end of their lives. It is not without emotion that I contemplate and empathise with both the life lived fully, and the life ended early, but both of whose lives were nevertheless insufficient, one persecuted for the life he offered to the country, the other dead for the service rendered to his. How may we die, unregretful, fulfilled? This is always a question that remains in the foremost of my thoughts when I think of life, and it is undoubtedly the foremost question that each and everyone of us must confront, for the answer we offer in reply will inevitably be the blueprint of the road we are building for ourselves en route to judgement day.

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'My lord bishop, I have passed my life in meditation, study, and contemplation. I was sixty when my country summoned me to take part in her affairs. I obeyed the summons.

'There were abuses and I fought against them, tyrannies and I destroyed them, rights and principles and I asserted them. Our country was invaded and I defended it; France was threatened and I offered her my life. I was never rich; now I am poor. I was among the masters of the State, and the Treasury vaults were so filled with wealth that we had to buttress the walls lest they collapse under the weight of gold and silver; but I dined in Poverty Street at twenty-two sous a head. I succoured the oppressed and consoled the suffering... I have done my duty, and what good I could, so far as was in my power. And I have been hounded and persecuted, mocked and defamed, cursed and proscribed. I have long known that many people believe they have the right to despise me, and that for the ignorant crowd I wear the face of the damned. I have acceped the isolation of hatred, hating no one. Now at the age of eighty-six, I am on the point of death. What do you ask of me?'

'Your blessing,' said the bishop, and fell onto his knees.

-Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

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'Strange friend,' I said, 'here is no cause to mourn.'
'None,' said that other, 'save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that be too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.'

-Wilfred Owen, Strange Meeting
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