Wishing for the End

In the seventeenth century, belief in resurrection meant belief that bodies would be re-formed and reunited with their souls at the Final Judgment. The belief in resurrection therefore makes death temporary; hence Donne’s famous holy sonnet “Death be not proud” ends with the following taunting couplet: “One short sleep past, we wake eternally, / And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die” (ll. 13–14; from Luminarium). Other poets, however, sometimes write poems that imagine happiness not as the death of death, but as the finality of death. If Donne’s “Death be not proud” sits at one pole of a spectrum, Abraham Cowley’s poem “All Over, Love” sits at the other. In it, he imagines the finality of death as the ultimate comfort. The larger conceit of the poem is that he is not so lucky as to “know” a time in his life “when he shall not be so [alive],” because his love is so powerful that it will animate his body long after his death, until Love brings his body back together in a kind of parody of the Final Judgment.

Abraham Cowley, “All Over, Love”

1.
TIs well, tis well with them (say I)
Whose short-liv’d Passions with themselves can dye:
For none can be unhappy, who
’Midst all his ills a time does know
(Though ne’r so long) when he shall not be so.

2.
What ever parts of Me remain,
Those parts will still the Love of thee retain;
For ’twas not onely in my Heart,
But like a God by pow’rful Art,
’Twas all in all, and all in every Part.

3.
My Affection no more perish can
then the First Matter that compounds a Man.
Hereafter if one Dust of Mee
Mixt with anothers substance be,
’Twill Leaven that whole Lump with Love of Thee.

4.
Let Nature if she please disperse
My Atoms over all the Universe,
At the last they easi’ly shall
Themselves know, and together call;
For thy Love, like a Mark, is stamp’d on all.

Abraham Cowley, “All Over, Love,” The Mistress, Poems. The Abraham Cowley Text and Image Archive.

Abraham Cowley’s “All Over, Love” offers a moving (and slightly haunting) vision of an afterlife where the strength of one’s emotion can prevent any meaningful rest; his “passions” are what lead to the ersatz afterlife in his poem, and what cause him in turn to voice a yearning for a death that marks a complete end of life. Though Cowley’s poem revolves around a clever poetic conceit, he is not the only author in this century to imagine death as final. The rise of Epicurean philosophy in the seventeenth century saw an explosion of writers not only writing about atoms and atomism (and it may be useful here to remember that Pulter sometimes conflates “dust” and atoms), but also wondering whether there may not be any supernatural or transcendent realms beyond ours. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, gives poetic voice to these Epicurean ideas in his translation of Seneca’s Troas:

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
“The latter end of the Chorus of the Second Act of Seneca’s Troas, translated”

After Death nothing is, and nothing Death;
The utmost Limits of a Gasp of Breath.
Let the ambitious Zealot lay aside
His Hope of Heav’n; (whose Faith is but his Pride)
Let slavish Souls lay by their Fear,
Nor be concern’d which way, or where,
After this Life they shall be hurl’d:
Dead, we become the Lumber of the World;
And to that Mass of Matter shall be swept,
Where things destroy’d with things unborn are kept;
Devouring Time swallows us whole,
Impartial Death confounds Body and Soul.
For Hell, and the foul Fiend that rules
The everlasting fiery Goals,
Devis’d by Rogues, dreaded by Fools,
With his grim griesly Dog that keeps the Door,
Are senseless Stories, idle Tales,
Dreams, whimsies, and no more.

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, “The latter end of the Chorus of the Second Act of Seneca’s Troas, translated.” Luminarium.

Rochester’s translation, above, is perhaps the bleakest version of Epicureanism; the same impulse, however, also contributes to carpe diem poetry. If this world is all we have, carpe diem poets often argued, then we should be maximizing the pleasures of this world rather than orienting our actions towards a potentially non-existent afterlife. It also leads to such witty works of nihilism as “Upon Nothing,” Rochester’s great metaphysical reflection on the power that nothingness holds.

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, “Upon NOTHING”

I.
Nothing! thou Elder Brother ev’n to Shade,
That hadst a Being ere the World was made,
And (well fixt) art alone, of Ending not afraid.

II.
Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not,
When Primitive Nothing something streight begot,
Then all proceeded from the great united—What.

III.
Something, the gen’ral Attribute of all,
Sever’d from thee, its sole Original,
Into thy boundless self must undistinguish’d fall.

IV.
Yet Something did thy mighty Pow’r command,
And from thy fruitful Emptiness’s Hand,
Snatch’d Men, Beasts, Birds, Fire, Air and Land.

V.
Matter, the wickedst Off-spring of thy Race,
By Form assisted, flew from thy Embrace,
And Rebel Light obscur’d thy reverend dusky Face.

VI.
With Form and Matter, Time and Place did join;
Body, thy foe, with thee did Leagues combine,
To spoil thy peaceful Realm, and ruin all thy Line.

VII.
But Turn-coat Time assists the Foe in vain,
And, brib’d by thee, assists thy short-liv’d Reign,
And to thy hungry Womb drives back thy Slaves again.

VIII.
Tho’ Mysteries are barr’d from Laick Eyes,
And the Divine alone, with Warrant, pries
Into thy Bosom, where the Truth in private lies:

IX.
Yet this of thee the Wise may freely say,
Thou from the Virtuous nothing tak’st away,
And to be part with thee the Wicked wisely pray.

X.
Great Negative, how vainly would the Wise
Enquire, define, distinguish, teach, devise?
Didst thou not stand to point their dull Philosophies.

XI.
Is, or is not, the Two great Ends of Fate,
And, true or false, the Subject of Debate,
That perfect, or destroy, the vast Designs of Fate;

XII.
When they have rack’d the Politician’s Breast,
Within thy Bosom most securely rest,
And, when reduc’d to thee, are least unsafe and best.

XIII.
But, Nothing, why does Something still permit,
That Sacred Monarchs should at Council sit,
With Persons highly thought at best for nothing fit?

XIV.
Whilst weighty Something modestly abstains,
From Princes Coffers, and from Statesmens Brains,
And Nothing there like stately Nothing reigns.

XV.
Nothing, who dwell’st with Fools in grave Disguise,
For whom they reverend Shapes, and Forms devise,
Lawn Sleeves, and Furs, and Gowns, when they like thee look wise.

XVI.
French Truth, Dutch Prowess, British Policy,
Hibernian Learning, Scotch Civility,
Spaniards Dispatch, Danes Wit, are mainly seen in thee.

XVII.
The Great Man’s Gratitude to his best Friend,
Kings Promises, Whores Vows, towards thee they bend,
Flow swiftly into thee, and in thee ever end.

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, “Upon NOTHING,” The Works of John Earl of Rochester. Luminarium.