Poem Post #4: Reflecting on: John Donne, “Death, be not proud”

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.      


I really like this sonnet. It empowers mortals, and with a few silly logical fallacies, it actually presents itself as an expression of bravery, fearlessness, and courage. At first glance, it seems like a desperate attempt to deny the reality of death, but after reading it a few times, we can see that the narrator does not exactly deny death, but minimizes it instead. Personifying death and then bringing it down like you would a human is precisely what Donne is going for here. He claims that no matter how much death hurts us, it will eventually die off. This, of course, is silly to say when talking about death mainly because it is not a tangible force with feelings or reasoning, but it can be related to human beings in circumstances that reminisce the acts of "death". Look at dictators for example, they might as well be death; undeniable, all powerful, and give off an ominous feeling from their wrathful aura. Now picture a man using the same argument Donne uses to ridicule death to ridicule a dictator. This is what I feel Donne is aiming for. He is exclaiming that the abuse of power senselessly might as well be meaningless because in the end, the abuser will die, and the human race will still go on. "One short sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more; Death [abusive being causing senseless killing], thou shalt die." I feel that this quote successfully summarizes what I'm trying to get at.