Happy that I can
Be crossed and thwarted as a man,
Not left in God's contempt apart,
With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart,
Tame in earth's paddock, as her prize. [ Browning ]

Oh! I have pass'd a miserable night.
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams.
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days. [ William Shakespeare ]

Death hath not so ghastly a face at a distance as it hath at hand. [ Proverb ]

Death is the tyrant of the imagination. His reign is in solitude and darkness, in tombs and prisons, over weak hearts and seething brains. He lives, without shape or sound, a phantasm, inaccessible to sight or touch - a ghastly and terrible apprehension. [ Barry Cornwall ]