Death, be not proud, thou 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 to 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.
Right from the beginning, it seems to me that the speaker in this poem is picturing Death as a person and is directly addressing the poem to him or her. As unlikely as it seems, the speaker dares to MOCK Death. Smart move buddy, smarrrrrt move. He challenges Death by saying that it can't kill him; Death hovers over our sleeping forms because it can only fantasizes about taking us with it. The speaker implies that dying has nothing to do with Death but instead, the souls of brave men get released into eternity and are freed at last. He taunts Death by saying that the latter is a slave to mortal men since they are the ones that can truly cause death on others. In the speaker's point of view, Death is a lowlife who hangs out with poison, war, and sickness. Its powers are extremely limited since it solely depends on its buddies and has nothing to do with the actual "dying" part. He then goes on to say that Death is a useless piece of shit that no one needs and is as a parasite to humans as opium. I find it extremely interesting that the author, whom I assume is religious, can depict death in such a metaphorical way. It almost seems like he is imagining Death as a scrawny little guy with a dark cloak over its head. The fact that he says death is caused on by mortal men and inevitable causes such as war and sickness gives me the impression that he is questioning God's influence on our mortality. He even mentions the powers of fate and charms, which reflects pageant beliefs (if I am not mistaken). Overall, I really love the poem because it is a fresh and enlightening approach to death and not a point of view that I would have expected coming from a Christian.
