Death

Death is the omnipresent force throughout the poem, with its influence felt, embraced, or rejected in every line. It is at times an antagonistic entity, and at others one that is disregarded as powerless in the face of the true strength of human endurance. Death appears three times in quick succession in the opening of the poem: in the title, in the accompanying first line “And death shall have no dominion” (Line 1), and the second line which turns its attention to those dead: “Dead men naked they shall be one” (Line 2). There are several other references to death as the poem progresses, such as “They lying long shall not die windily” (Line 12), “Though they be mad and dead as nails” (Line 24), and of course the pivotal repeated refrain. These recurring motifs give the sense that death is all around us, all the time — in spite of...