Death
Death is a total poser in this poem, like a schoolyard bully who turns out not to be so tough, after all. The speaker even makes death out to be a good thing, because it leads to the new life of Ch...
Rest and Sleep
Donne didn’t invent the comparison between death and sleep, but he uses it here to great effect. But, you have to know a tiny bit of Christian theology to fully understand the idea. It is tho...
Death's Friends and Masters
Death hangs out with a bad crowd, like the kids who hang out behind the bleachers and try to talk you into vandalizing things on Halloween. Unfortunately, they aren’t cool at all. They’...
Birth
There’s only one example, and it’s a play on words, but we wanted to give Birth a little love, too, because it’s nothing but Death, Death, Death for most of the poem.Line 8: It...