Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE DUKE OF BYRON IS CONDEMNED TO DEATH, by GEORGE CHAPMAN (1559-1634) Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: By horrow of death, let me alone in death Last Line: These are but ropes of sand. Subject(s): Death; Dead, The | ||||||||
BY HORROR of death, let me alone in peace, And leave my soul to me, whom it concerns; You have no charge of it; I feel her free: How she doth rouse, and like a falcon stretch Her silver wings; a threatening death with death; At whom I joyfully will east her off. I know this body but a sink of folly, The groundwork and raised frame of woe and frailty; The bond and bundle of corruption; A quick corpse, only sensible of grief, A walking sepulchre, or household thief: A glass of air, broken with less than breath, A slave bound face to face to death, till death. And what said all you more? I know, besides, That life is but a dark and stormy night Of senseless dreams, terrors, and broken sleeps; A tyranny, devising pains to plague And make man long in dying, racks his death; And death is nothing: what can you say more? I bring a long globe and a little earth, Am seated like earth, betwixt both the heavens, That if I rise, to heaven I rise; if fall, I likewise fall to heaven; what stronger faith Hath any of your souls? what say you more? Why lose I time in these things? Talk of knowledge, It serves for inward use. I will not die Like to clergyman; but like the captain That prayed on horseback, and with sword in hand, Threatened the sun, commanding it to stand; These are but ropes of sand. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRIEND KILLED IN THE WAR by ANTHONY HECHT FOR JAMES MERRILL: AN ADIEU by ANTHONY HECHT TARANTULA: OR THE DANCE OF DEATH by ANTHONY HECHT CHAMPS D?ÇÖHONNEUR by ERNEST HEMINGWAY NOTE TO REALITY by TONY HOAGLAND BRIDAL SONG by GEORGE CHAPMAN (1559-1634) |
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