Reflection of John Donne's "Death, be not proud". #1

This poem caught my eye on the first line; as soon as I read "Death, be not proud, though some have called thee" I instantly came up with a meaning behind the words. They personified death and made it the main character of this poem, saying that he doesn't really like his line of work, and he doesn't necessarily agree with everything he does, but he has to do it; he doesn't take pride in it. It’s kind of like a vegetarian being a vet, at one point in their career they are going to have to put an animal to sleep, they might not want to, but it is in the job description. In the second line,  “Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so”, I feel that the author is trying to say that Death is basically the “big cheese” in this situation, everyone looks up to him because he is powerful, but no one wants to get to close so that they can’t get on Deaths bad side. They go on to talking about how we are all ruled by fate, with the way they say it they could be talking about the character of Death or they could be talking about everyone else that death has/will take: “Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men”, as if to say that Death can’t escape fate just like we cannot, Death has as much of a role to play as we do. After hearing the idea that Death is controlled by Fate, it made me think two things; one, Fate is the speaker of this poem, and two, who Death kills isn’t his choice, it is the choice of Fate. Fate decides when Death’s punishment is over, and Fate decides when the punishment starts for everyone else; “Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me”. The last few lines give us a bigger hint at who the speaker could be, “One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die”. These two lines make me think that the speaker is someone who Death has taken recently, someone who has gone through that “short sleep” that happens when a person dies, and when they “wake eternally” it is some sort of life after death. In the beginning of this poem, it seems that the narrator feels sorry for Death, but at the end when they say “and death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die” it sounds more like this person has a vendetta toward Death. They don’t feel sorry for him, that tone was leaning more toward sarcasm.