As I Walk Through The Valley:

An Analysis of Death within Holy Sonnet 10 by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou thinkst 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 souls 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 swellst thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

With a spondaic stomp, the first foot fall draws attention immediately to the conceit of

the poem: Death. The opening of the first octet lays a clear thesis at our feet; the form of the

introductory lines, both beginning in an unconventional foot (one spondaic and the other

trochaic), mirrors the unconventional view that Death is not mighty, but rather a powerless

transient interlocutor between this life and the next.

As a starting point, perhaps we should consider the obvious point of the addressee. The

personification of Death is both necessary to the structure of the argument, as well as intriguing:

firstly, without the ability to address Death, the elegant directness of the poem would be lost and

would be replaced, rather, with a round-about discussion of mortality filled with more diluted

imagery; secondly, and this is arguably the more interesting element, it positions Death and the

speaker of the sonnet in a dialogue rather than a simple address. In thus discussing this idea,

Donne summons Death, and, sitting across from those empty eyes, calmly discusses the limits to

its power.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

 Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

The decision to hold mighty and dreadful within a single clause suggests that Death

must be both, or, in this case, neither. Dread refers, of course, to extreme fear, but the Oxford

English Dictionary provides a second use whereby the word communicates deep awe or

reverence. Mighty refers to something which possesses might, something powerful, or potent

(again, from the Oxford English Dictionary). A secondary definition is quite intriguing: Of God:

possessing transcendent power. Of a ruler, leader... wielding an imposing degree of power. We

can choose to read this line in a deeper context: the speaker suggests that some see Death as a

God, holding power far above that of man, the personification of terror, something to which we

owe deep reverence, and quickly turns to exclaim that this is not so. Following Donnes personal

beliefs, we can easily read this as communicating the idea that there is a single God, which must

be privileged above false idols.

For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

The alliteration in the third line of the poem of the voiceless dental fricative th,

compounded by the fact that this line is the first void of any punctuation, increases the pace of

the reader. Foot falls quickening, the enjambment hurls us to the next line where we stop

abruptly at Die not. Here, the punctuation and the rhyme both work to create a mirror; we land

again on an A in rhyme scheme, as well as again finding a small clause constrained via a

comma at the opening of the line. This drastic reduction in speed causes us to stumble and, in

doing so, draws our attention to the two successive clauses: Die not and, perhaps more
interesting, poor Death. Those which appear to be defeated by Death do not die, but tacitly can

be understood to rise again (especially considering this works proximity to the Christian

cannon). Why, however, would the speaker see Death as poor? Perhaps, as it is incapable of

completing its only function, there is empathy: even Death cannot kill. Conversely, poor could

refer to a class distinction: poor below rich. As kings would be considered mighty - and let us not

forget that Jesus is referred to as King of Kings in the new testament - perhaps the modifier of

poor toward the idea of Death reaffirms the concept of it being subordinate to God.

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 souls delivery.

Our best men will rest and their spirits will be delivered, assuming their status of best is

accurate, to an azure palace; there is but a moment of darkness. We move to another plain.

Syntagmaticly, we see that there will be more pleasure that will flow after this life, and there is

no discussion of any intermediary discomfort.

Here, we take a cesuratic turn, and look at Death from a different angle, rhythmically

accentuated by a stretching of the metre.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

The line begins in a trochaic foot, but swiftly becomes spondaic: fate, chance, and kings

echo throughout the couplet, and reverberate down into the sestet. The fourth stomp within the

piece carries weight, suggesting a link between fate, chance, kings, and desperate men: is there
any logical differentiation? No: there is no difference. It is interesting to note that the ideas of

fate and chance are lumped in with the negativity pointed toward Kings, desperate men, poison,

war, and sickness. Perhaps, this is a nod toward the idea that there is a divine plan which nullifies

both the ideas of fate and chance, while also voiding the power which Death would claim. Again,

we are struck with an and:

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swellst thou then?

We feel again the tension of an ill-fitting shoe; a size, half a foot too large; our cramping

toes drawing our attention, causing us to dwell on the line. We are told that elements of our

natural world allow us to sleep, but we are also told that Death, a natural element of our lives,

cannot keep pace with these natural things. How can a part not keep pace with the whole? I

would suggest, this is not possible; if Death cannot function as efficiently as the natural world, is

Death itself natural? And better than thy stroke; why swellst thou then? If the natural world

holds power better then death, than perhaps Death itself exists outside of a natural discourse. It

was not created in parallel with nature, in the Christian cannon, so perhaps its power is as

secondary as its inception.

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, though shalt die.

We are here struck with Donnes religious belief that perhaps Death is but a doorway.

Linguistically, the penultimate line is short: one of the shortest typologically in the sonnet. The

opening line of the final couplet draws accent in its avoidance of overbearing presence. Every

iteration of Death in this final line is stressed, to the point of creating another spondaic foot, and

ending in the elegant finality of emphasizing the work die itself. The one element within the
sonnet which succumbs to death, is Death itself, and we, with Christs help, we step over its

form, and wake, eternally.