John Donne
A bust of poet John Donne. (Photo by Bill Eccles on Unsplash)
Special to United Methodist Insight | July 22, 2025
The changes are few but distinct. If anything, my mother has experienced as many bad days as good over the past week. We are told that this is to be expected. One thought that keeps recurring is that her mind is dying. It’s how I’ve come to think of what’s happening. In a sense, it’s collapsing inward. What my father, wife, and I see daily is a conscious process; her ability to make sense of the world around her is unraveling.
Sometimes, she is aware of what’s happening, which is frightening because we see the fear in her eyes. Other times, we watch silently, powerless to intervene. Often, that’s how I feel. Death, whether sudden or drawn out, wants us to believe there’s nothing we can do. John Donne, in the 10th sonnet of his 19 Divine Meditations, tells us we are wrong.
I know what Donne is saying. He is rebuking death, trying to put the old beast in its place. However, that’s not how I’ve always read this line. Sometimes, even today, I’ll pass by the words, and with a glance of the eye, I’ll think to myself, “Yes, death is not proud; nothing is redeeming about death; the end of life is not something to trumpet, welcome, or demand.”
When I allow myself to step out of context and to read only that single line, I am missing the point entirely. These are not words of encouragement, though they might be taken as such. Nor are they words of quiet resignation, to be uttered at moments of great grief and despair. To do so, while not wrong, misses Donne’s message altogether.
Holy Sonnet 10
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.
The focus of these verses is not on our human reactions and responses to death, particularly during times of sickness and grief. Instead, Donne puts death in the dock. Death is on the defensive. Death, for all its perceived power, is now forced to answer for itself in a way it is not accustomed to doing. Most existential poetry (and prose) acknowledges death as the supreme reality in life. In doing so, writers cede control of their emotions, destiny, and humanity to death’s eventual consummation of all we know and love. Why do anything if it’s all going to end up with us staring blankly into a Nietzsche-like giant abyss?
Donne (echoing St. Paul) says, “not so fast.” Maybe, he asks, death isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Perhaps, per chance, death doesn’t deserve the reputation with which we have imbued it.
Look at the first two lines again:
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
Death, he writes, you have no reason to be dreadful or mighty. Your record is not one accomplishment. Donne is unequivocal: you are not who you think you are. This is a poet, the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, taking on death. Consider the context; this was an era of plague and ongoing civil and religious strife. Death, by all accounts, appeared to be winning. Life, as an idea, was always perpetually behind in 17th-century England. Death, it seemed, was winning. Donne had other ideas.
Here’s the question John Donne asks: “Death, who do you work for?” It’s a good question. Is humanity subservient to death, or is it the other way round?
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
Death, he says, is a matter of chance and fate, employed in the service of others. The worship of mortality thrives in times and places where humanity is at its most hardened and numb. These are times that try men’s souls, and when we are tempted to let death claim an undeserved pride. But as Donne reminds us, this is only the dominant narrative if we let death write the script. Death does not hold the quill.
Any power death retains ends when it encounters an idea larger than the rational, temporal finality advertised by death and its supporters. The idea is this: death has no power beyond death. That’s Donne’s sonnet in a nutshell. Death can only go so far, and then it can go no further. For all of it imposing stature and fear-inducing moments, there are places, to quote Gandalf, where “death shall not pass.”
If death can’t reach everywhere, why, Donne asks, should we allow it any moment of pleasure or prominence? We shouldn’t. Death does not speak the final word. Despite everything you’ve heard, we, the living, keep on speaking. The dead, then, continue to live through our witness and words. Check.
We do not understand eternity. I’m not sure if I need to. To be honest, I don’t want to. I have enough on my plate right now. I do, however, appreciate Donne’s ambiguity at the end of the sonnet. He leaves the blanks empty, which St. Paul so readily fills. Donne gently points the reader in the right direction and sends us on our way.
Eternity, in whatever form it takes, is sanctuary embodied. The poet knows eternity is there, and it's an impermeable boundary that death cannot cross. If that’s true, then life looks very different and death isn’t so proud after all. Checkmate.
Richard Bryant
The Rev. Richard Bryant is an ordained elder in the North Carolina Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. This post is republished with permission from his blog Elevate the Discourse on Substack.