And Death Shall Have No Dominion Analysis

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Through they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

.: :.

The previous post is retarded. Thomas was mocking the idea of life after death by paraphrasing Romans 6:9. He was conveying that death is a finality, but that it's alright because we have experienced life. The fact that we die doesn't detract from those experiences, they existed.

| Posted on 2009-04-29 | by a guest

.: :.

It means neither of them. Heaven is calassified as up above so he has chosen space to represent heaven, so the space they never had in life because death was lurking the now have in space. So space in the astrological sense also means space as in space around us. So by saying stars at elbow AND foot, we know the guy is in space, metaphorically meaning heaven. So we now know because he's in heaven, we know that death never had 'diminion' over him, so it couldnt bring him down to hell.
The line is basically another way of representing the line 'And death shall have no dominion.'

| Posted on 2009-01-29 | by a guest

.: :.

I am trying to find out whether the meaning of the line "they shall have stars at elbow and foot" is a reference to sort of astrological imagery (including tarot and the like) or whether it is to mean that they shall be clothed in some sort of divine raiment even though their bodies have been "picked clean" to the bone.
Please offer any insights.

| Posted on 2008-08-04 | by a guest