Strange Mood

The last few days have left me feeling strangely complex. As I am a woman, I suppose that should not surprise me. Regardless, I felt drawn to a poem I read while I was in my senior year of high school. I still find its message timeless, and somehow appropriate:

Death Be Not Proud
By John Donne

DEATH, be not proud, though some have callèd 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,	5
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men with thee do go—
Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;	10
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!

(Poem accessed from Bartleby.com in the Oxford Book of English Verse)