One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally …

Given the seriousness of my mother’s diagnoses, we are all tentatively doing our best to say important things and discuss difficult topics. Like death. And life. And love too of course.

Last night, I looked up one of the very first poems I memorized as a new Christian: John Donne’s Death be Not Proud. It is still as poignant today as the day I first read it as a teenager. But its power is really best experienced by reading it out loud.

I encourage you to do so. Especially the last four words. They have rung out in my heart for 25+ years now:

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.