Be Not Proud…
The English poet John Donne was also an Anglican minister who succumbed to an early death, well perhaps for his times, 59 was not exactly young but certainly by today’s standards, at least, a man with several more decades of life left to live. Every English Lit. course in high school or certainly college taught his famous poem, Sonnet X, which has also been titled, “Death Be Not Proud.”
The substance of the sonnet, written in 1609 but not published until two years after his death (1633) was Donne’s defiance in the face of his impending demise, though not as evident in 1609, but a call to action to stare death in the face and challenge its veracity.
He wrote:
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.
If you read the Bible, you will see the parallel in his words with this verse, 1 Corinthians 15:26 as written by the Apostle Paul:
26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
Whether death should be faced as boldly as an enemy at the gates or with the dignity and grace of the old guard passing the torch is certainly something we all have to grapple with and define for our own lives. The end of days or end of times brings a short nap into eternity and where that next journey takes us, we must decide how we choose to battle or move through peacefully that next phase.
We are promised nothing. Our fate, which may have been sealed long before we were conceived, drives our life decisions. This includes our euphoric highs and our desperate lows, success, failure, and all that counts as life’s experiences. We face death in our own way and on our own terms. How we face her (or him) is a question that is as personal or as honest as we wish to be. Let all respect what and how we choose to embrace that, which is inevitable, and rejoice in a life lived and an attempt made. Death be not proud but simply the omega to all of our personal alphas.
