Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem,
And yet we think the greatest pain's to die.
How strange it is that man on earth should roam,
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
In the Romantic period, Death is seen as a never ending state and what happens to us daily when we are awake are but ephemeral pieces of a dream. Keats asks rhetorically if death truly is the greatest pain we as humans beings have to face.