Endurance of the Spirit

One of the core ideas within the poem is the way the human spirit survives and continues living after not only death, but after pain, sickness, and trauma. The title and refrained line, “And death shall have no dominion” (Line 1), refers to both the world after dying and the landscape of the soul itself; even as the body fades and decays, death has “no dominion,” or no influence, on the spirit. The first stanza introduces several examples of the way humanity can be tested: through madness, through “sinking” — literally by drowning, or metaphorically by sinking under the weight of day-to-day living — and lost love. In each of these experiences, the poem argues, a person’s inner spirit is capable of overcoming them and transcending to a new, higher state of being.

In the second stanza, the poem shifts its attention away from the...