One of the motifs from the poetry of the English Renaissance that I find the most moving is the idea that change shall eventually change into a state of changelessness, and that death itself shall die, and life shall live.
In Spenser, Time is the enemy of life, a scythe-wielding fiend who tramples the Garden of Adonis. But he’ll end like Marvell’s Damon:
“The edgèd steel by careless chance
Did into his own ankle glance;
And there among the grass fell down,
By his own scythe, the Mower mown.”
“The edgèd steel by careless chance
Did into his own ankle glance;
And there among the grass fell down,
By his own scythe, the Mower mown.”
Spenser dilates on the theme in his Mutabilitie Cantos.
In his Holy Sonnets, Donne writes,
“One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”
In his Holy Sonnets, Donne writes,
“One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”
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