Readings · Poems
Death, be not proud
John Donne · 14 lines
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 picture 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’rt 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.
About this reading
John Donne wrote these fourteen lines as one of his Holy Sonnets. They were first printed in 1633, after his death, in Poems, by J. Donne, which John Marriot sold at his shop in St Dunstans Church-yard in Fleet Street. The sonnet argues with death and tells it that it will itself die.
Set from E. K. Chambers's edition of 1896, which modernized the spelling of the old printings; the 1633 text has "dreadfull", "soe" and "mee". Chambers also differs from 1633 in three words — "picture", "Thou'rt" and "dost", where 1633 has "pictures", "Thou art" and "doth" — and points several lines differently. His footnote gives 1635 for "dost".
- First published
- 1633
- Text from
- Poems of John Donne, edited by E. K. Chambers, volume I (London and New York, 1896)
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