Tombstone from Cochin, India

Why, death, do you tarry so? Why does your chariot come so slow? Old age has prepared for me Every illness and complaint. What good are my hundred years?    If such pain I undergo—    Why, death…

I besieged and captured Samaria. I took as spoil 27,290 people who live there; I organized (a contingent of) fifty of their chariots and I instructed the rest of them in correct conduct. I appointed…

But who emptied your shoes of sandWhen you had to get up, to die?The sand which Israel gathered,Its nomad sand?Burning Sinai sand,Mingled with throats of nightingales,Mingled with wings of butterflies…