*Poet's Corner- John Donne's "Death Be Not Proud"

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Julian Glover Reciting John Donne's "Death Be Not Proud".

Commentary

There is no accounting for tastes sometimes but I have always liked John Donne's poem "Death Be Not Proud". The recent past has been one where deaths have occurred in my family and among some close friends and so naturally I have thought of this poem. Yes, I know Donne was one of those metaphysical poets that were always harping on the "divided heart" or "two heart" literary tropes associated with that poetic style. Still that last line always seems right to me concerning the vagaries of our attitudes toward death.

Death, as the noted Marxist historian and biographer of Leon Trotsky Issac Deutscher once noted, is still one of the three great tragedies of life that that we face (sex and hunger being the other two, the last of which Marxists have focused their struggles on eliminating). Maybe in a more just future we will be able to cope with its terrors better. I note, as well, that the early 17th century when clergyman Donne wrote his poems and epistles is still considered the great age of meditation on the theme of death in the English-speaking world. But enough- here is his poem.

Guest Commentary

John Donne

"Death be not proud, though some have called thee"

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, 5
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, 10
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.