Vital spark of heav’nly flame!
    Quit, O quit this mortal frame:
    Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying,
    O the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.  

Hark! they whisper; angels say,
    Sister Spirit, come away!
    What is this absorbs me quite?
    Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heav’n opens on my eyes! my ears
    With sounds seraphic ring!
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?
    O Death! where is thy sting?

  

I will always marvel at authors who capture a thing they have not experienced. I had such an encounter with Lewis while reading Out of the Silent Planet some time back. In that book, he doesn’t just describe space – there goes such and such star, oh look, an oncoming planet – but has us as the reader also pass through the heavens with him, watching in awe as the handiwork of God is on display for us. I read something similar here with Pope. Here, he doesn’t not mock death like Donne or observe the passing from life to death in an out of body experience like Dickinson. Instead, this is a dying Christin conversing to his soul, a conversation with himself, a letter, an epistle, to the part of him that will be separate for a while and will later be rejoined in perfection.

He is not once fearful. He is not eager either; instead, he lays in that future moment in perfect peace. Have I considered such a conversation with myself, with my soul? Perhaps I have. I’ve wondered a lot recently at the foolishness of wasted time, and wondered what my mindless doings are doing to my soul. But let us go back to Pope. What does he have to say to himself, to us? He wrote this, not as an old man facing his mortality, but in the prime of life, yet recognizing his mortality. He wrote this in part as a response to a Latin poem by Emperor Hadrian, who wrote to his own soul. Where would his loving soul go? Flying off on its own, undressed without his flesh. Would it have a home, or forever be a wanderer with other shades, fading into nothing? What a fearful faith! Yet Pope has a greater hope, facing death without fear, knowing he is promised something greater:

Quit this mortal frame, he says. To Nature he asks, cease thy strife “And let me languish into life.” What peace in those words! Yes, every sense and function steals to a close. His flesh has yet to be reborn, but he will be with the Light of Life! He is not naive about this either, for he notes that it is the “pain, the bliss of dying.” But as we age and falter, oh, we ask, could this be death? Yes! For here we shed no tears, here we look towards Life! Listen! This world fades away. The pain of sin clings to our mortal frame. Our earthly senses die, but only that we might hear that heavenly band, those saints triumphant with the heavenly chorus. Yes, draw us onward then! For we do not grieve like those who have no hope. We are not like the great Hadrian, pondering after his hapless soul. No, we have cling to that hope-filled peace. For we are His who died and rose again. So we say with joyful confidence: O Grave! where is thy victory? / O Death! where is thy sting?

Blessings to you and yours,

~Madelyn Rose Craig