# data[].attributes.body
"'Death be not proud' forms part of a short sequence in John Donne's Holy Sonnets on the subject of death and divine judgement. The sequence is designed to deepen religious fear and prepare the reader for poems intended to renew and reawaken religious love. "

# data[].attributes.body
The whole sequence of the holy sonnets is based on  St Ignatius Loyola's spiritual exercises,  a sixteenth-century Spanish priest. He reflects the pattern of the exercises in many of his holy sonnets, excluding this one.

# data[].attributes.body
The poem is far from seeking the help of God to face his fears of death, but he beats death through human traits.

# data[].attributes.body
The speaker uses personification to make death a person that is not so high and "mighty" as many do think.

# data[].attributes.body
The speaker in the poem minimizes the power of death, but also makes death a good thing as it leads to a Christian's eternity in the after life in Heaven.

# data[].attributes.body
The speaker asks, "And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?" as a rhetorical question to make Death realize that it should not be so proud.

# data[].attributes.body
The conceit of sleep and resting is referred to "pictures" of death, instances where "pleasure" may come from because death is only a long version of these things.

# data[].attributes.body
To the "best men," death is only great rest for tired "bones," but if one needs good sleep, they can just take "poppies" or "charms," drugs or potions.

# data[].attributes.body
When the speaker awakes from the short sleep, they will be in Heaven, the great aspect of death.

# data[].attributes.body
"Poison, war, and sickness" are tormenters of death and although he is powerful, these are ever controlling of him and "fate" also being a master of his power.

# data[].attributes.body
"In 'Death be not proud' it is Christ, not a lover, whom the poet hopes to 'wake eternally'. But his real focus is trying to out-argue death. It is as if his salvation depends on winning the same kind of verbal victory over death that he wins over time in 'The Sun Rising.'"

# data[].attributes.body
"But this kind of showy metaphorical ingenuity is out of place in the divine poems. Death is no laughing matter and the largely playful argument of the secular poems here acquires an unmistakably personal edge. If the poet is again trying to wrestle death to the ground it is because, this time, he is afraid of it."

# data[].attributes.body
"'Death be not proud' shows that the mysteries of religious love will not be conjured with words."

# data[].attributes.body
"In the second quatrain he argues that, since death is merely a supremely restful sleep, we should look forward to it. By the third quatrain he has decided that he will not pay death even that compliment because 'poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well/And better than thy stroke'."